Up
by Miss Baby
Summary: An uphill love story about a girl, a boy, their friends, lots of bicycles, one big mountain and a promise to a dying man that turned into a life changing event.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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_**Like Bella in this story, I have been a lifelong fan of watching road cycling and, again like Bella, I once made a promise to someone to not just sit on my ass and watch as others climbed the magnificent Alpe d'Huez in de French Alps but actually follow in their footsteps and make my own way to the top. Last year, I fulfilled that promise during a huge charity event to raise money for cancer and the event but even more so the training and preparations leading up to that, changed my life. This story is not a step-by-step replay of what happened to me since the storyline itself is completely fictional (alas, since I wouldn't have minded a little bit of Edward in my life) but a lot of Bella's training experiences are mine. I hope you'll enjoy the story. **_

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_**A big thank you is on order to my amazing beta-team Jadsmama and Ladysharkey1 for putting up with me and making me and my stories better. **_

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**1. Dad**

"Who's…win-ning?" The sound of his muffled voice broke my heart; so labored and frail, coming from a man who used to be so strong. It broke my heart to hear him becoming so weak. Still, I somehow managed to plaster a smile onto my face, knowing it would do him no good to see me crying, no matter how much I wanted to at that moment.

"Dad! You're awake!" I replied with fake cheer.

His face took on a look of frustration as he repeated himself with a little more emphasis on the words. His fingers trembled as he lifted the mask attached to his oxygen supply but I knew better than to help him. "_Who's_…_win-ning_?"

That year's Tour de France was the most important one of his life to him, even if the route through France proved to be a little lackluster due to the absence of the 'big' mountains like the Mont Ventoux or the Alpe d'Huez. Up until a couple of weeks ago, when dad still had the breath and the energy to be angry, he and I had spent many hours damning whoever had come up with this stage scheme into the lowest circles of hell for boring us to sleep with a tour in which the most exciting climb was the Tourmalet.

And they didn't even finish on top of that one.

The tour was one of the highlights of the year to dad and me, one we looked forward to like others would to the Super Bowl, even though the recent doping developments had taken some of its shine away. It had been something that was just 'us' for as long as I could remember, as my dad's strange fascination with a sport most Americans couldn't give two fucks about already featuring in some of my earliest memories of when my toddler self climbed onto my daddy's lap to find out what had him so engrossed. I'd been watching along with him almost as soon as I was old enough to fathom what the hell this cycling thing was and from that moment the drama, danger and physical strain of the world's biggest cycling event had me hooked as much as my dad. For those three weeks, the rest of the world would just cease to exist, making only a short appearance during rest days and moments when 'our boys in France' weren't on their bikes.

I loved the sport with every fiber of my being but what I loved the most about the Tour de France was that it was 'our' thing.

Me and dad.

It had a lot of extra meaning now since it would be the final tour my dad would ever get to see.

Our last tour together.

I still couldn't believe it – didn't want to believe it – but next year, it would just be me.

Me and an empty chair that would never be filled again.

"Let's see," I hedged, my eyes flashing from my dad to the big flat screen propped up so that he had a perfect vision from his bed as I tried to blink away the onset of tears forming on my watery eyes. "Valverde escaped on the Côte de Burs and he's still up front with about a minute and a half on the chaser, but Froome and Wiggins are gaining on him now that they've reached the Peyresourde."

A fresh round of labored coughs made his chest shake as he once again lifted the breathing mask. "As long…as Fro-ome can…keep his head out…of his ass...Wig-gins will be o-kay?"

"Pretty much," I nodded, cranking the sound up a few bars so that dad could hear it better. "Valverde's too far behind him in the overall standings to be a threat and with the way they are gaining on him towards the top, he might even win it if it's his lucky day."

"He'll…give it…to Froome," Dad wheezed, really starting to feel the toll of taking his mask off.

"I wouldn't," I snorted. "Froome has been behaving like a dick for the past couple of miles; showing off at every turn that he's stronger than Wiggins."

Dad merely smiled, faintly shaking his head. "Then…Wig-gins…knows…who…he has…to thank…for his….vic…tory." If there had been any joy from this year's Tour, it was the fact that Bradley Wiggins, a big favorite of both of ours, seemed to be heading towards his first overall win.

"He…he's…a…good…man," Dad panted.

I nodded, my eyes once again glued to the television screen as the final countdown unfolded, with a jubilant Valverde finishing a mere eighteen seconds before Froome and Wiggins, with much discussion breaking loose after the finish line about whether or not Froome would have been able to win the stage and maybe even the yellow jersey if he wouldn't have had to wait for his teammate.

Dad listened with a barely veiled distaste and I knew that had he been in a better shape, he would have been hurling abuse at the commentators and the other know-it-alls, as he would undoubtedly call them.

_It's your duty as an up-and-coming cyclist to ride domestique for whoever heads the team. It's always been like that and it will always be. Any people who doubt the system should poke their snotty noses into a different sports because that's how we do things in cycling. _I don't know how many times I've heard my dad repeat that same statement over the years but every time I was still boggled by who he meant with 'we'. It couldn't have been him, since he'd never owned or ridden a racing bike in his life.

Not that we hadn't made plans to change that, though.

I smiled, my eyes wandering back to him. He'd nodded off again almost as soon as Wiggins had crossed the finish line, knowing as well as I did that with two relatively flat stages and a time trial – one of his specialties – still remaining, only a disaster would keep Bradley Wiggins from his first tour victory.

I just wished and prayed that dad would live long enough to see him do it.

With him asleep, it was safe to let the tears fall, though it took more effort each day to keep myself from sobbing out loud and waking him up.

_Daddy._

He didn't need to see me cry on top of all the pain he had to suffer through already, the final bits of strength finally slipping from that once so powerful and indestructible body as he lost his struggle with lung cancer, though at the moment it seemed to have spread everywhere.

If there was ever a single cell of me that contemplated picking up smoking as a habit, dad's fate was enough of a cautionary tale to never make me give in. I don't know how many times I'd seen him light up a cigar over the years; the house always filled with spicy, fragrant blue smoke whenever he was home. He knew the risks, he wasn't stupid, but I think part of him had never wanted to think about the potential consequences.

To think that maybe his addiction would claim his life one day.

I sighed, wiping away the remnants of my tears as I heard some noise coming from the driveway; mom and Alice returning from their shopping trip and sounding so chipper the neighbors might have started to wonder if maybe dad wasn't in there, dying after all.

"We're back!" Alice sang as she traipsed into the place like she owned it with mom hot on her heels carrying the grocery bags.

Rolling my eyes, I once again wondered how two people born from the same set of parents could be so unlike each other. That was, after I was done being pissed off. "For God's sake, Alice," I hissed, checking from the corners of my eyes to make sure her dad was still asleep. "Keep your fucking mouth shut. You _know_ he's sleeping!"

At least my sister had the good grace to blush guiltily, though there was no apology as she shot into the kitchen. Mom, however, had different ideas about making her displeasure known, and it wasn't with her oldest child. "Do you have to lay into her like that?" Renee whisper-yelled. "We all work so hard to make this as easy as we can for your father. It's not like she meant any harm."

Her comment made me roll my eyes for the second time since they'd been home. It was so like mom to pick Alice's side, whether it was because girly, ever-cheerful Alice had always been the apple of her eye or because she still hadn't forgiven me for picking my dad's side in the divorce and choosing to live with him instead of my mother's.

"Whatever," I huffed, turning my attention back to dad. He'd always been on my case to keep up the contact, even going as far as to forbid me from bearing the burden of his care alone when he had been diagnosed with end-stage lung cancer, though he had to have been disgusted to have that woman and the ungrateful oldest daughter who always complained about having to spend a few weeks in Forks each summer under his roof.

I was.

For dad's sake, though, I bit my lip, kept the peace because I knew he would be disappointed to see me fighting with her and because I didn't want his last days to be filled with tension and strife.

_When all this is done, I deserve at least a nomination for the Nobel fucking Peace Price. _

Fortunately even mom and Alice picked up on the fact that I was in no mood to talk as we all sat down to dinner a few hours later, dad still sleeping in the living room as they chatted on about stuff I either didn't understand or couldn't give a fuck about while I mentally went over the list of stuff that needed to be arranged for the funeral.

They also didn't seemed to mind when I volunteered to sleep in the living room with dad, just as I'd done most nights, so that I'd be close by if something happened.

Neither of them would have known what to do anyway, since they hadn't arrived yet when dad was brought back from the hospital and his doctor gave me the run down on all the stuff he was hooked up to and the medicine he needed to take.

I think Alice was more afraid that something would happen and she wouldn't know what to do or say to dad when he needed her most. Mom however…

Her inability to take the lead and actually stand up in hard times shouldn't have surprised me anymore, since she'd never been able to do either such things, but that didn't mean it didn't still hurt that she was only doing this because of what others might say to her if she didn't.

She'd never given a fuck about my dad and she wasn't about to start.

"Bella." Between my glum thoughts and the exhaustion of being up and about all day, taking care of dad, I'd just started to doze off when his voice woke me up again.

"Dad!" I pushed the pain away from my shoulders, stretching against the stiffness of being perched on the sofa when I was used to my own queen-sized bed. "Do you need anything? Water? A higher dose to dull the pain?"

He shook his head a strange sort of solemn determination settling onto his features that made me wonder what the hell he was planning. "I want you…to promise…me…something," he spoke, his voice stronger than it had been in days as his hand held the breathing mask to his mouth again, taking a few shaky pulls from his oxygen as he look expectantly at me.

"Anything," I replied before even thinking about how making promises when you didn't even know what they were about was never a smart thing to do. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you…to do it. What we've always…dreamed…about…but never…got to do," he spoke with eyes fierce as they traveled from my face to the stage scheme mounted on the wall next to his bed.

He didn't need more words for me to know exactly what he meant. It had been the dream that had started that very first time, years ago, when we watched the Tour de France together, witnessing with open mouths as Guiseppe Guerini braved the crowds lining all fourteen kilometers and twenty-one hairpin turns of the climb.

We decided we wanted to do that, too, one day.

Well, maybe not with so many people lining the road and nowhere near as fast as Guerini, because that would just be madness, but that mountain? It had something magical in our eyes and we were desperate to experience that magic.

Seeing as both knew how much hard work would go into fulfilling that dream and neither one of us was particularly fond of actually practicing sports as opposed to watching them from the cozy confines of your living room, I'd always assumed the dream would remain just that.

A dream.

"I want you…to go up there…and take me with you." Dad went on, his strength quickly diminishing as his demand to on a clearer shape. "Scatter….my ashes…from…the…top."

I nodded, tears falling from my eyes as the magnitude of what he was asking from me started to register_. Can I really do it?_ I'd do anything for him; I knew that in my heart, no matter how impossible his challenge might have looked.

"We'll do it, Daddy," my sister's voice sounded from behind me before I had time to answer his question myself. "Bella and I will take you up there, just like you've always wanted."

A part of me wanted to yell at her to keep the fuck out of _our_ dream. This had always been something that belonged to dad and me alone but somehow she'd managed to weasel her way into our plan and the fact that she did so without as much as blinking an eye or asking me if it was okay made me seethe with anger.

One look at dad's face, though, was enough to make me eat my words before they spewed from my mouth; the relieved smile and look of intense relaxation on his face as he slowly sagged back into nothingness being more important than anything, even my sister butting in.

"Good," he whispered, his thin, feeble hand reaching out for both of us, his other hand patting the top of the little stack of hands as we placed them on top of his. "This…is good."

I nodded, biting my lip to stop the tears from falling as inwardly I was still trying to find out what the hell I'd just signed up for.

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_**Thoughts?**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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_**Thank you to my kickass beta-team, Jadsmama and LadySharkey1 for whipping this chapter into shape. I did tinker with it after they were done, though, so any faults are my own. **_

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_**And thanks to all for you for giving this little story a go. It means a lot to me. **_

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**2. Plan**

Dad passed away on the twenty-second of July, just hours after Bradley Wiggins had crossed the finish line on the Champs-Elysées as the winner of the 99th Tour de France. He never woke up again, after the late night promise he'd wheedled out of me but as I dutifully turned on the television every morning, to watch an event I didn't really connect with anymore, I could sense that he was still with us.

He _knew_, even if he lacked the strength to open his eyes.

The change in him came sudden; his breathing becoming more labored by the second as that one thing he'd been holding on for – their last Tour de France together – came to a close and he allowed himself to finally give up when he'd known all along that there was no winning against a foul adversary like end-stage cancer.

Seeing the riders cross the finish line was a bittersweet moment for me this time around; knowing it meant dad's last reason for holding on – just so that he could watch one final Tour de France from start to finish with me – had just come to an end, but not wanting to see him suffer any more or longer either.

In the end, he died as he'd lived: quietly and composed, here one moment and then suddenly gone as his final breath wheezed from his lips and his frame, so tense with pain and torment, relaxed.

He was gone.

Somewhere behind me I heard her mom whisper something to Alice, who was sobbing uncontrollably, as I leaned up and kissed my daddy's forehead, my own tears falling freely as I suddenly felt like I was completely alone in this world. It was strange but even though the past couple of weeks he'd been nothing but a barely-conscious ghost, stuck to his corner of the living room only having him there in body but not in spirit, I immediately started to feel that huge gaping void he'd left behind.

He wouldn't be there anymore, his eyes twinkling above his moustache and some cooking experiment gone wrong stinking up the place, when I came home for the weekend.

There would be no more James Bond marathons where we would discuss which Bond sucked the worst over beers and Cheetos or Sunday mornings traipsing across the forest under the ruse of hunting when really we just wanted to soak up the peace, quiet and fresh air while we still could before I had to go back to college and the big city and he had to go back to work.

No longer would I see his smile light up when he saw me walking up to the front door or hear him laugh – not just with his mouth or eyes but while his whole being – when we made fun of something crazy my mom had said.

He wouldn't be there anymore, on those Christmas mornings when we would exchange gifts and the homely, comforting sounds of his ESPN-addiction would blast over the noises of my cooking before we stuffed ourselves until all we could do was vedge out on the couch, watching mindless television.

He wouldn't see me graduate and follow in his footsteps. _Well sort of_.

He wouldn't get to walk me down the aisle if I ever found a boy crazy enough to 'make an honest woman out of me'.

He would never get to teach his grandchildren all the things he taught me when I was young and they, in turn, would never get to experience the awesomeness that was their granddad.

But most of all, there would no longer be the safety of knowing he was around when I needed him or just wanted to talk. He wouldn't be calling anymore on those Friday nights I couldn't make it back to Forks to talk about everything and nothing or run a quick check up on my truck on the Sundays that I did, so that I would make it safely back to Seattle no matter how run down my ancient Chevy might have looked.

No longer would those two weeks in July belong to us, as he arranged his shifts around the stage scheme and I made sure we were stocked up on snacks and drinks and that the whole route of that year's tour was stuck against the wall, with little markers indicating where we thought the most exciting opportunities would lie.

All of those things…I'd taken them for granted until this moment, when I knew they would never happen again.

And the realization of it, hit me like a ton of bricks.

He was gone.

The next few days passed in a blur of things that needed to be arranged and friends coming over to pay their respects; mom and Alice taking to their roles of bereaved family members with a vigor that made me walk around in a perpetual eyebrow-raise while, as soon as the last visitor had left the building, they started to complain about the costs of the funeral and having to entertain 'all those damn people'.

If it were up to them, I was afraid they would have just chucked dad's body into the woods somewhere for the grizzlies to eat him.

Poor dad. If he'd been alive, I was sure the two of us would have had a blast making fun of those two, with their fancy clothes and their hoity-toity behavior.

But he wasn't.

And he never would be.

"Hey, Bella, how are you holding up?" I had to use some force to keep the smile on my face as Mike Newton approached me right after we made it back home from the funeral, his cologne nauseatingly present as he snatched the opportunity to grab me into a hold a little too close for my comfort.

Of all the people gathered here, why did he have to be the first one to come up and say 'hey'?

Mike and I had dated during our senior year of high school. Well, that is, if you could call five weeks of him trying to get into my pants and me trying to tell him I wasn't ready for any of that shit, dating. It had finally ended when, on prom night of all nights, he'd tried to stick his hand in my underwear when he kissed me goodnight, claiming that he'd waited long enough and that it was time for me to put out, especially after he'd spent all of five dollars on the ugliest corsage I'd ever seen.

He was lucky I didn't tell my dad or he might have ended up dead in a ditch somewhere, though I was proud to say he did walk funny for a couple of days after I kneed him where it hurts!

And just another thing: what did people actually expect you to tell them when they asked you how you were doing at your own father's funeral? Did they expect you to lie, like you probably had, and tell them you were holding up just fine, or did they quietly hope for a massive breakdown where you wailed about how it wasn't fair and started cursing God and all the saints for taking your loved one away from you?

Extricating myself from his hold I tried to look as brave as I could as I answered, "I'm holding up, I guess." I shrugged, my eyes involuntarily traveled to the empty spot where dad's bed used to sit. I missed it already, though what I really missed was the man he used to be, not the wilted image of my strong dad as his strength was slowly eaten away by that bitch of a disease. Not seeing him there…knowing he was never going to walk around this house anymore…It was too much. "At least he's in a better place now," I added while holding back my tears. I wouldn't give Mike the satisfaction of knowing how I really felt – like a train wreck, held together only by social expectations – or his mom blabbering all over town how bad I looked and how she suspected my bloodshot eyes were because of drug use.

"Yeah, well, I'm putting together a hunting party this fall," Mike went on, seemingly happy to be done with the usual ceremony. "You know? In Charlie's honor. I was hoping you'd tag along, you know, to keep his memory alive and, you know, share some stories by the campfire."

There were a few too many 'you knows' in that sentence for me to not get suspicious. Cocking my head to the side, I narrowed my eyes as they zoned in on him. "Who else is coming?"

Mike shrugged, averting his eyes to the floor. _Bingo_! "Nothing's set in stone yet. Billy will be out of town by then and with Jake's wife due to give birth around September, I don't think he'll make it either. The rest of the gang will probably be game."

_Yeah, the rest of the gang meaning: all of your buddies who won't kiss and tell when you go for a second attempt at getting into my panties while we camp out in the middle of nowhere. No, thank you very much_. "I'll see if I can make it," I answered non-committedly. "I'll probably be busy with college by then, though."

"Right." Mike looked dejected as he hovered awkwardly in my personal space, the end of the conversation obviously not being any reason to him to leave.

"Bella!" I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard another familiar voice, a very welcomed arm wrapping around my shoulder as Emmett, my best friend since Kindergarten, pulled me into one of his bear hugs – just the thing I needed.

"Thanks for coming all the way out here," I sniffed, finally feeling safe enough to let go just a little as Emmett's girlfriend, and my college roommate, Rose, wrapped herself around the bits of me not covered by Em.

"No worries, sweetheart," she crooned. "We know you needed us and it's not like you wouldn't have done the same for us."

"Now how about we get out of here, huh?" Emmett suggested, sensing I needed a breather. "It's raining out – like that's much of a surprise – but it's relatively quiet out on the back porch."

I nodded, letting them shepherd me towards the door, cringing when Mike – Captain Oblivious to the bone – made a move to follow. Luckily Emmett was right on him, his face friendly but his voice leaving no room for mistakes. "We've got it, buddy." Emmett and Mike had never gotten along ever since Mike had pulled my hair on our second day of Kindergarten and Emmett had retaliated by backing over his mechanical Lego set with his tricycle.

"Oh, there you are!" Of course I should have known that getting away from Mike would only lead to worse things like being accosted by my sister the minute I set foot on the back deck. She'd been hanging out there with her tool of a boyfriend, who only contributed to calming Alice the fuck down since he had arrived yesterday, and spent his time out in the backyard smoking.

If I'd had to energy to do so, I would have joked about the irony of smoking like a chimney during the funeral of a man who died of lung cancer.

Emmett quietly handed me a beer as Rose came back from a quick trip to the kitchen carrying some sandwiches and cold cuts. "Thanks." I smiled, breaking off as tiny a piece of sandwich I could get away with before washing it down with a big gulp of Budweiser.

"We need to get some stuff sorted out for our trip before Mom and I head back to Seattle," Alice meanwhile droned on, "or are you coming with us?"

I shook my head. "I'm staying behind for a few days, clearing the house before it goes up for sale and stuff. What do you mean, anyway?"

"Our trip to France?" Alice looked at me like she thought I'd gone completely senile. "I was thinking next summer since that gives us plenty of time to train – I think there's gonna be some training involved before we can actually get up there without dying of a heart attack halfway through – and I don't think we'll be able to get up there in the winter or even spring, with the snow and all."

That was Alice for you, alright. Couldn't drive a nail into a wall without bringing the house down but still fast enough to talk at the speed of light. "Looks like you already arranged the whole damn thing," I grumbled, already feeling like I'd lost control of the situation when it should have been me who did all of that stuff.

Alice, meanwhile, nodded perkily. "You were busy with everything that needed to be done so I went online and looked up a few places near the Alps. Apparently there're a few of cottages right at the foot of the climb and also some really good campsites on the same street."

"No camping!" I yelled, already a doom scenario of having to fight off the bugs and slowly emptying airbeds of this world before hopping on my bike and cycling up a damn mountain taking shape in my mind. "If I'm going to do this, I'll be sleeping in a real bed the night before I hop on my bike for eight miles of 'hors categorié' climbing."

"Wait a minute," Rose held up her hand, frowning as she tried to piece the puzzle together. I'd almost forgotten she and Emmett were still there. "You're going cycling? Up a fucking mountain?"

"Don't sound so surprised," I grumbled. "It's not like it is impossible and…and I like sports."

"Yeah," Rose snorted. "You like watching it with your ass planted on the sofa and a bag of potato chips sitting next to you. I don't think I've ever seen you actually _do_ it."

"I have to," I sighed, tears burning in the corners of my eyes again. "For Dad. He and I used to fantasize about doing it but now...now he wants me to spread his ashes at the top."

"Us," Alice interjected. "And by the way, Jasper's coming too. Aren't you, Jazzy?" The goo-goo eyes she made at this Jasper guy of hers almost made me gag.

That was, if I wasn't so pissed off. "What?"

Alice shrugged. _Seriously, did this girl have any proper feelings running through her system? Next thing you know she'll ask Mom to tag along too!_ "If we go for one of those cottages, there will be plenty of room since they don't seem to come with any less than eight beds."

"So, I can come, too?" Emmett, bless him, asked. "I mean…if I'm not imposing or anything…I just…" He blushed, scratching the back of his head. "Charlie was like a second father for a while when my mom was between husbands, and I…"

"Of course you can come!" I caught Alice's look of disapproval as I enthusiastically grabbed Emmett's hand. I couldn't give a shit about how my sister felt. If she got to invite people without asking me, then so could I. "Are you coming too, Rose?"

"I'll come if I get to watch you guys go off on your crazy scheme!" Rose giggled. "But if you think I'm going to schlep my ass up a mountain then you have another thing coming."

"I'm sure we'd be more than happy to have you tag along," Alice spoke with what fake enthusiasm she could muster, her arm wrapped firmly around her boyfriend's waist as she started to discuss plans and research cycling, none of which made any sense to anyone who actually knew a bit about the sport.

The rest of them really seemed to be getting into it, though, their voices louder as they talked about preparations and training schedules while I just sat back and tried to pinpoint the moment when my personal pilgrimage had turned into a second Woodstock.

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_**Thoughts?**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**Thank you to my kickass beta-team, Jadsmama and LadySharkey1 for whipping this chapter into shape. I did tinker with it a little after they were done, though, so any faults are my own. **_

* * *

_**So…this one's pretty much me on my first trip to the gym…**_

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**3. Spin**

"Fuck!" I groaned, struggling through my ten minute early-morning-beauty-regimen. "I think I need to join a gym now." I'd been back a few weeks, perpetually putting off the start of my training but in my defense, I _had_ been busy. My boss had promised to hold my job part-time job at the campus coffee shop for me when I moved back in with my dad a couple of months ago but only if I could work full-time at the downtown branch for the rest of the summer. On top of that, there had been some on-line classes I needed to complete before the start of the Fall term as per my study advisor's suggestions.

All in all, things were slowing down, believe it or not, now that the new academic year had officially kicked off, I was back to just being a full-time student and a part-time barista.

Rose giggled from underneath the haphazard pile of pillows and blankets across the room. "What brought this on?"

"The promise I made to my dad?" I scowled, trying to make my hair at least look like something decent. "If I want to actually make it to the top without croaking somewhere halfway up, I guess I have to actually get off my ass and do something."

"That, right there, is why I volunteered to man base camp," Rose snorted unapologetically. "No good could ever come from working your body up into a sweat if it doesn't give you an orgasm at the end of it. It's unnatural."

"So is cycling up a mountain when God's made perfectly good cars to do the trick," I grumbled. "But I'm going to do it anyway."

"Your funeral!" Rose chuckled, really rubbing it in as she lazily turned around in her bed, stretching her long limbs.

"You're a bitch!" I growled, throwing some stuff I thought I might need later on into a bag as I finished getting ready for work.

"Took you long enough to figure it out!" she sang after me as I slammed the door shut, scowling all the way to my job at one of the on-campus coffee bars.

All through work and my afternoon classes I was dreading the moment I would actually be free since that was the time that I'd promised myself I would to head on over to one of the on-campus gyms to start my first workout.

Or die trying.

Me, the person who'd always laughed at sporty people in their faces as I saw them running in the rain or coming back all pooped out and sweaty after a trip to the gym. _Well, I guess I'll be eating those words now._

As I stood in the entryway to the gym, already not liking the smells of their industrial lemon cleaner or the chipper, sporty, smelly-people emanating from inside on a wave of loud, upbeat music. I raised my head to the sky and shook it. "Look what you made me do, Dad! Are you enjoying this? I bet you are!" I snorted, almost starting to find it funny myself. "I bet you're laughing your ass off up there."

_I would have. _

I hadn't even walked to the front desk area before I was accosted by some skinny chick who seemed to be the embodiment of all my sporty prejudices: blond, toned, perfectly coifed and much too happy for her own good. And did I mention she had one of those long, bouncy ponytails?

I wanted to deck her right there and then; punch her nose until it was bleeding all over her perfect white top. _Damn! I didn't know exercise was going to bring out the aggressive side of me!_

Jessica, because of course she had to be named that, took me through the motions of getting me registered, all the while wheedling an astronomic amount of money from my purse, and setting me up with my own 'finger-print check in' and 'exercise key'. All those years and I'd never known that apparently fitness equipment needed the same kind of protection as the federal government.

When that was done, she shepherded me upstairs, only leaving me to change clothes in private after a very stern look from me, and trudge me back down to start my 'intake' which consisted of putting all sorts of strains on my poor body as she took it through a 'training circuit' consisting of cross trainers, treadmills and those god-awful Medieval inspired torture devices they nowadays gave figurative names like 'abdominal crunch' or 'leg press'.

Apparently 'intake', to these sporty people, was some sort of euphemism for a torture the likes of which had only been known by the Spanish Inquisition.

And apparently, because somehow dark powers weren't just distributed to Sauron and the Nazgûl, she somehow managed to sweet-talk me into taking a spinning class on the tail end of all of that because 'that would be such a great exercise for what you're going to be doing'.

Yeah, it turned out Alice isn't the only air brain in the family after all.

It doesn't even sound so bad when you don't know what it is. In fact, spinning sounds almost like 'twirling' or maybe even 'napping'; both things I could almost get on board with. Spinning, however, is something they do in the deepest, darkest circle of hell when they really want to give those fuckheads sweating in that class a taste of pain. The instructor even kind of looked like Satan. Well, if he wore ridiculously tight pants and a muscle shirt and walked like he'd never outgrown the diaper-stage.

The people surrounding me – because, man, the room was packed to the rafters with people all decked out in similarly tight workout clothes – all made some weird clicky sound as they got onto their bikes while I just shoved my shoes into the straps amidst pitying looks from my fellow spinners and whispered remarks about how I was going to be in so much pain without a pad.

I had no idea what the hell they were talking about but it sounded ominous.

And then it started.

I should have gotten off that damn spin-bike after the first track left me out of breath and inches away from passing out but no, I had a point to prove to 'Miss Chipper' and the 'padded' mafia, so I stayed on, soldiering bravely through songs two and three and really starting to feel good about myself for holding up in such dire circumstances.

At least, until the instructor announced that we were only warming up.

Then, I just wanted to cry.

After the fourth song I really started to find out what they meant about that pad too, since my ass was starting to hurt more and more against the unforgiving tiny, hard saddle, making the sprint sections seem like some freaky S&M exercise.

By the time the final song rolled around I was so sweaty and sore that I could barely even muster the energy to celebrate that the torture would soon be over, the whole room emanating damp, pain and relief, even when we still had one hell of a tough exercise to go through. When that one, too, was finally done, my ass was hurting like someone had just fired a BB gun at it (don't ask me how I know) and my legs felt like someone had poured concrete all the way down my veins, but as I shakily dismounted the bike, I had to admit I kind of felt good about myself. If _this_ was what it felt like to exercise, then it might not be half bad after all.

So I went home, got in the shower and parked my ass in front of the TV, slowly munching through a whole pack of chocolate chip cookies while I licked away the white mustache my whipped cream-covered hot chocolate had left behind. _Hey, just burned crazy amounts of calories; I earned them!_

The consequences came the next morning when I tried to get out of bed. And couldn't.

I mean, technically everything was still working and attached at the places where they should be but when I made one move to shift all those amazing arms, legs and stomach muscles into an upright position, they seemed to be rebelling every step of the way.

Rose, of course, had a blast watching me slowly roll out of bed by first putting my knees on the floor and then just backing out from underneath the covers because that way I hardly had to use my abs. If I'd had the energy I would have growled at her or maybe even chucked a pillow or two at her head but, being as it was, I needed all my strength to do the old-lady-walk (you know, the one where you hunch over a little so that the muscle in your shoulders, thighs and abs are slightly relaxed and don't hurt as much as when you're in an upright position) into the shower.

It helped me a little, and so did the coffee that I had on my way to my first class of the day: Crime, Politics and Justice. At least the debate on the criminal justice system got me so heated up that half the time I forgot about my sore muscles.

That was…until every time I moved.

Deep down I knew this pain was all part of the game and that, if I had any backbone I would just suck it up and head back to the gym today to work off the discomfort by doing it all again.

The problem was, though, that my backbone seemed to have taken a prolonged leave of absence and with the deadline still so far away, had no plans of returning any time soon.

In the cafeteria during lunch, I selected my food not on what tasted good but what weighed the least, though the hamburger special looked too good to pass up, even if it made my arms feel like they were falling off as I carried my tray over to the table, spotting Emmett almost as soon as I made it there.

"Hey there, Calamity Jane," Emmett said under his breath and chuckled as I stuck out my tongue. He knew how much I hated that nickname. "What's up?" His brow arched as he got a good look at me waddling towards them, balancing my tray as I fought the urge to groan at every step I took. "Why are you walking funny? Did you finally get laid?"

It wasn't until the poor guy next to him almost chocked that I noticed Emmett wasn't alone. Strangely enough, Alice's latest tool was sitting right beside him having lunch.

Or chocking on it, was more likely.

"I didn't get laid, thank you very much!" I huffed, sighing with relief as I finally plopped down in the booth, Emmett and Jasper scooting down to make some room. "And you know how much I hate it when you call me that?"

"I think it's cute!" Emmett snorted. "Besides, it fits you."

"Does not!" I growled, digging into my burger.

"Calamity Jane?" It seemed like Jasper had finally found his voice again.

"He started calling me that after my dad took me out for my first shooting lesson," I shrugged, not really feeling like going into all of that.

"Yeah, but it really stuck because Bella's so damn clumsy!" Emmett added, revealing the one thing that really made me hate that name. It was one thing to trip on flat surfaces but quite another to be constantly reminded of it.

"So you can shoot?" Judging from the look on his face, poor Jasper needed some time to digest this piece of information.

"I'm not like my sister at all," I helped him out, speaking around a mouthful of the most amazing burger I'd ever tasted. "She got all the girly genes, while me...I look like my dad, I guess."

"That's why everyone always think she's gay," Emmett chimed in, earning himself a glare and a kick to the shins – and me some unnecessary pain – but hopefully would make him think twice about spewing crap like that to potential future family members. "What?" he cried in outrage, rubbing his sore shin. "They do! You still haven't answered my question, though."

"About what?" I grumbled, wondering if he had another embarrassing 'fun fact' up his sleeve as I crammed some fries into my mouth.

"About why you're walking funny," Emmett patiently repeated. "If it's not because of a guy then what in the hell have you been up to, Swanny?"

"I've been working out, actually." I shouldn't be but somehow the look of utter shock on their faces made me giggle. "Don't act so surprised now, Em. If I'm going to be cycling up that damn mountain then I'd better start training now." It felt weird, joking about my trip up the Alp, especially given what it meant to me, but as I said the words I knew that had he been there with us, he would have patted me on the shoulder and told me he was proud of me.

One of dad's finest teachings was that there was no disaster great enough in the world that could not be made bearable by joking about it.

And God knew his death had been a disaster.

As was training for this ultimate tribute to the man he'd been.

"How's that going for you?" Em immediately wanted to know. "Though looking at ya, I don't really have to ask, do I?"

"That was really the first time you've worked out?" Jasper chimed in, his voice almost accusing. "Me and Alice have been working with a personal trainer every other day since we got back from Forks. You really should get started or you're going to be in one hell of a scramble to catch up and be ready in time."

My hackles rose as I tried to shrug off the guilt since he was right, of course. "I've been busy and…well, old habits of being lazy die hard, I guess. Besides, it's not like I have the money to hire a personal trainer. Unlike Alice, I don't have a job other than the one that pays for my books and room and boarding."

"What you need is a kick in the butt to get you started, doll face!" Emmett joked, ruffling my hair. He knew this was a touchy subject for me. "And what do ya know? I think I know just the kind of guy who would be more than willing to give it to you."

"You? I presume." I snorted, feeling slightly better. "Thanks a lot but I think I'd rather ask Rose."

"Your funeral," Em muttered, pinching my last two fries. _Jackass!_

"I think you need a trainer," Jasper stated, as if we hadn't just gone over that. "I mean, not someone who makes a living out of it but someone who would have no problem taking you under their wing."

I scowled. _Well gee, thanks for making me look like some kind of pitiful charity case!_

"In fact," he went on, as oblivious as my sister always was to the thinness of the ice he was skating on. _Isn't that a match made in heaven?_ "I know a guy who'd probably jump at the chance. That is, if you have no problems with him tagging along for the ride as well."

I waved his worries away. _If it's going to be like the second coming of Woodstock, then we might as well take everyone and their fucking moms along for the ride as long as _my_ mother stays home_. "Who do you have in mind?"

"A buddy of mine, Edward Cullen?" Jasper offered, his eyes widening with shock when Emmett erupted in loud guffaws while I just sat there blinking in complete horror.

_No. No way. No. No. Noooooo! _

* * *

_**Thoughts?**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**Thank you to my kickass beta-team, Jadsmama and LadySharkey1 for whipping this chapter into shape. **_

* * *

_**Ready to meet Edward?**_

* * *

**4. Coach**

My sister never went to college.

Apparently, according to her, the confines of conventional higher education were far too stifling to nourish her precious, artistic brain.

I called _bullshit_.

Mom didn't.

She just stood there that summer, flapping like a fucking seal during Alice's graduation party and telling everyone how marvelous it was as she footed the bill for some expensive internship all the way in New York that, truth be told, did land Alice a job that paid rather nicely.

When, two years later, I made plans to postpone starting college by one year so that I could do some volunteer work in Latin America, the world was too small a place to convey her displeasure.

And, according to her, it was my dad's fault, of course. Just like everything else always was, according to mom.

If he had instilled a proper sense of duty and a working moral compass in me like any proper parent would have, I would not have even thought about throwing all the money she'd so painstakingly set aside for my college tuition away on some harebrained scheme and would have made my way to college and on towards crunch wheels of capitalist society with the rest of the sheep. Not, of course, that I'd planned on touching that money, since I was paying for the trip with money I'd earned working at Newton's and avoiding Mike's grabby little hands.

I ended up not going.

For Dad's sake.

All of those memories cross my mind as I was on my way to meet my brand new personal trainer, my footsteps sounding more venomous with every step as my mood sours. I didn't want to be here, even though I knew I had to…that it would get me where I needed to be. _For Dad_. If only the person I was going to meet was someone other than…

Edward Cullen.

Or just 'Cullen' as I always called him. That, or asshole.

_Psah!_

Why did it have to be him, of all people?

Cullen and I went way back. Well, about as far as the start of my college education. There I was; fresh faced and nervous as hell as I moved into my first dorm room when the most mouthwatering man walked straight passed me carrying some big ass houseplant I later learned his mom made him bring.

I watched him with the star-struck eyes of a small-town girl whose ideals of male beauty had been formed by actors and men in glossy magazines since the closest you could come to a pretty guy in my own home town was Mike fucking Newton in all his pimply, lanky glory.

It didn't take long before his name was on all the girls' lips; whispered gossip about how he was originally from the West Coast and how his parents owned one of those huge McMansions up in Bellevue and how he was supposed to be some sort of genius in sports, music and maintained a perfect 4.0 average traveling the halls at breakneck speed and setting all hearts aflutter. I had to admit that for a while I kind of got caught up in it as well – I mean, the guy is gorgeous, who could resist? – but my admiration never went quite as far as it did for some.

Seriously, I think a few of those girls would have believed it if you'd told them he crapped pure gold.

The first time we actually spoke – words and all – was a couple of days later when my roommate, Rose, drug me off to one of the dorm parties that marked the start of our first, real college experiences. Half the girls in the room gave me the stink eye when Cullen sauntered in, about halfway through the evening, and plonked down in the empty spot next to me on the sofa, the rest pretended not to care while giving me the 'stealthy stink-eye'.

I didn't notice, though, I was far too nervous trying to come up with something smart to say to the Nobel Prize worthy genius (if the grapevine was to be believed) who'd featured quite heavily in my quality alone time of late. So I did what most girls in my situation would have done (or so I consoled myself afterwards): I started to blurt out the most horrible word vomit ever to be spewed by humankind. And maybe even a couple of apes.

I had to give the guy credit, even in spite of everything that happened afterwards, for not laughing at me to my face as I rattled off my whole life story in less than fifteen minutes. Not that much stuff had happened in my eighteen years in this world by that time but still, it was more than any person should ever try to cram into fifteen minutes.

It shouldn't have surprised me that he grabbed the first opportunity he got to get the hell away from me but it still kind hurt when he never returned after 'grabbing us a couple of drinks'.

It hurt even more when the gossip first reached me.

And then to rub it all in, he made it virtually impossible for me to forget about him and my most embarrassing attempt at seduction seeing as he kept on using the coffee shop I worked at as his base for Friday night dates.

Every week.

With a different girl hanging on his arm (and bouncing on his dick before the night was over if I interpreted the looks right) every week.

All in all, I'd handed in my membership of the Edward Cullen fan club a long time ago, which, of course, made the irony of needing him to get me ready for the Alp even greater. Especially since he'd suggested meeting me at the coffee house, though I shouldn't have been surprised after all that happened, that he'd suggested neutral territory for our first meeting.

I would have, if I were him.

"He's just a boy," I muttered as I pushed against the door to my workplace, though I wasn't there to wait tables or make coffee that day. I was there to meet my coach. "His shit's just as brown as mine."

I giggled, remembering the first time I'd heard my dad said those very same words when he got ready for his annual meeting with the rest of the county chiefs of the Pacific Peninsula. He never liked those meetings since they always made him wish he'd done more; caught more criminals, written out more fines and all that but somehow he always came home in a good mood, reassured that all the other police chiefs were just as lazy as he was. I missed him. _Okay dad, here we go. _

He was sitting by the window reading a book, the seat next to him vacant as he sipped his coffee. _Okay, well that's two things you've never seen in regards to him_. The minute he heard the doorbells chime, his mouth lifted into a nervous smile, his hand waving me over after I'd nodded at Lauren, one of the regular girls working the Friday night shift, to get me my usual as she mouthed an 'Oh my God' in return.

"Edward Cullen?" I asked, even though we both knew I'd recognized him as soon as I walked in. I made sure to keep my voice sharp. After all, I was still angry.

"Bella, isn't it?" He grinned, playing the game as he motioned for the chair next to him which, of course, I didn't take, electing to sit across and as far away as I could get from him.

I nodded, sitting back as Lauren came over with my coffee and bagel - as well as a peek into her cleavage for Cullen who, I had to give it to him, kept his eyes straight out of Lauren's business. "So you know what this is all about?" I asked, wanting to make sure the guy didn't have any funny ideas. "Jasper told you I won't be able to pay for anything except for the odd coffee now and then, right?"

Mom – or more accurately, her second husband – might have been loaded enough to cover the costs of our trips and all the gear we needed to buy to get us there but that didn't mean her charity extended as far as paying for a personal trainer for me.

If my name had been Alice, of course…

"I know!" Cullen held his hands up as if in surrender. "And it doesn't matter to me at all. I mean…this is such a great thing you're doing for your dad, of course, but it's also an amazing challenge, and an opportunity to cross another Alp off my list."

I frowned. "Your list?"

He nodded, taking a sip from his own coffee before popping the final bite of his bagel into his mouth. "When I started cycling a couple of years ago, I made a list of all the mountains I wanted to tackle and so far I've been able to cross out a few of them." He shrugged. "I never managed to make it to the Alps, though."

"So, are there any climbs on there I might know?" I asked, sipping from my coffee as I watched him go in for the kill, trying to act all arrogant and self-confident since he obviously had no idea I knew a thing or two about European mountains.

"So far I've stuck mainly to the US mainland but two years ago my parents decided to head on over to Spain for a couple of weeks so I was able to cross the Aubisque and the Ventoux off my list when they finally allowed me to head on up to the French side for a couple of days with one of my buddies."

"The Ventoux, huh?" I nodded, continuing to slowly sip my coffee. "I have to admit I'm impressed. From which way did you climb it?" I knew the Ventoux, of course, from the many times it had featured in the Tour de France. It was one of the highest, most demanding climbs around. That was, if you tackled it from the hardest of the three routes leading to the top.

Not that the other two were easy, though.

His eyes almost budged out of their sockets. "Y-you know the Ventoux?"

"You don't watch the Tour de France for eleven years without picking up a thing or two about mountains," I shrugged, enjoying the baffled state I'd reduced him to. "So, which side did you go up?"

"Malaucienne, but only because of the temperatures," he answered, looking almost apologetic for not having attempted the Bedoin-side, the hardest of the three possible ways to tackle that mountain.

"I heard it's horrible out there in the summer," I agreed, feeling like a saint for not using this excellent opportunity to make fun of him. "Especially the final part of the climb." The final stages were completely out in the open with no more trees to shield you from the blistering sun during your final ascend to the top.

"I have to say, Bella," he started, his voice suddenly serious and, on second thought, quite nervous too, "I had a hard time believing Jasper was for real when he called me. You know…after everything that went down the last time…"

"You mean after you spread a rumor all around campus that I was gay?" I snarled, the reminder eradicating all the credit he might have built up throughout our meeting.

Cullen's face took on a look that was positively green, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed with some difficulty. "I want to say I'm sorry about that," he muttered, his eyes studiously trained to his empty plate.

"Why did you do it?" Even at the midst of the gossip, that was still the one thing I'd never found out. I mean, I'd all but tortured the guy with my Bella101 session but that didn't exactly give him the rights to pull the kill switch on my dating life.

"I just wanted to warn some of my buddies," he blurted, rattling off on a round of word vomit that rivaled mine. "I heard them talking about maybe asking you out and I thought I'd spare them the embarrassment of being turned down."

"Because you had all the evidence that I wasn't interested in boys!" I growled, slamming the empty coffee cup down on the table with all the force I could muster. "Don't you think you should have checked first?" I'd felt so hurt when the guy I'd had a huge crush on spread a rumor about me and now to have him admit that he'd done it? I felt hurt and angry all over again.

"It seemed like a pretty open-and-shut case." He cringed when my glare intensified. "What was I supposed to think? You shoot, drink beer, watch sports and you want to be a cop when you're finished with college."

"So that automatically makes me a lesbian?" I fumed, earning a few stares from other customers. "Don't you think that's awfully discriminating and hurtful to people who _are_ gay as well as girls who like boys but hate all the girly shit…girls like _me_?"

"I'm sorry," he muttered again, looking like he was about to disappear beneath the table top.

"Do you know how hard it was for me to get a date after what you said?" I raged on, picking up steam left, right and center. "I basically had to offer up blowjobs to get guys to go out with me and even then they expected me to put on a three-way with one of my roommates because they _still_ didn't believe me!"

"I'm so sorry, Bella. I was an ass, there's no other way of describing the way I acted." He wrung his hands, looking quite uncomfortable and mysteriously downtrodden as he studied the crumbs on his plate. "I guess this means you no longer want my help?"

With everything I had I wanted to scream at him to get the fuck away from me but, sadly, beggars can't be choosers and this guy had agreed to help me out free of charge. "You really think you can get me in shape by next summer?"

He nodded, my traitor heart fluttering a little at the eager look in his eyes. "If you stick to the plan and work your ass off, then I don't see why not."

"I guess you're stuck with me then." I sighed dramatically, still wondering what the fuck I'd just signed up for. "But next time you spread a rumor about my private life, you won't wake up the next morning, _capisce_?"

"Great!" He surprised me by almost vaulting over the little table to grab my hand and shake it in a way that made me happy I didn't have to write anything that afternoon. "So, how about I pick you up tomorrow for our first session?"

There was part of me that was relieved to know that – finally – I was starting to take the right steps to get me ready for the Alp. The other part, though, was scared to death that I had just made the biggest mistake in my life.

* * *

_**Thoughts?**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**Thank you to my kickass beta-team, Jadsmama and LadySharkey1 for whipping this chapter into shape. **_

* * *

**5. Dawn**

I should have known better.

I should have known that to sporty people, like Cullen, 'tomorrow' meant 'at the fucking ass crack of dawn'.

"Open the fucking door, Bella!" Rose groaned from her side of the room. "I want to get back to sleep and he's not leaving before you give in from the sound of it. Make it stop!"

"Fuck you!" I growled, though I wasn't quite sure if my words were directed at her or Cullen, who had been banging against the door for the past five minutes.

It seemed like hours.

"Do you have any idea how early it is?" I groaned, still needing most of my energy to keep myself in an upright position and open my eyes just far enough to see where I was going.

"Yeah, it's six o clock," Cullen answered, acting like that wasn't some ungodly hour. "Why?"

"Do you know what normal people do at six in the fucking morning, Cullen?" I went on, my voice picking up a little more venom as I started to become more awake. "They sleep, that's right, until some idiot decides to start banging on the fucking door for some fucking reason."

"You're definitely not a morning person," he chuckled. Yeah, that's right; he had the nerve to actually laugh at me. I should have decked him while I had the chance. "Come on, grab into your running gear. Training starts now."

And just like that, he left me standing in the doorway with my bottom jaw scraping the floor.

_Wait a minute….he doesn't actually mean that, does he?_

"What did he want?" Rose growled, her voice still muffled by her duvet and sounding half asleep. _Lucky bitch._

"He wants me to go out and exercise!" I grumbled.

"Then go," Rose spat, "but be quiet about it. Some people are trying to sleep."

Rose was about as much of a morning person as I was.

Looking at my nice, warm, and very inviting bed, I had to take a moment and debate what would happen if I just got back in and forgot all about this nonsense. But then I realized that it would only bring him back with more thumping against the door until I budged.

Damned sporty, morning people.

Still grumbling under my breath about the inhumanness of having to be up so early, I dug around the back of my closet, pulling out a ratty pair of sweats and one of my dad's old Forks P.D. sweatshirts. In lieu of my newly purchased fitness gear, which was still lying in a sweaty pile in my hamper, it was the only outfit I even had remotely suitable for working out.

Hoisting them up, I prayed the drawstring on the pants will hold out because I had no desire to show Edward Cullen just how delectable my ass was in the granny panties I always wore because they were so comfortable (not to mention cheap), even though they look like they came over on the Mayflower.

My mood had only soured more when I finally joined him outside, frowning when he directed me to the parking lot where his ridiculously clean and shiny Volvo was running stationary. "We're not going to work out?" In spite of my confusion he did manage to pull a small smile of approval from me as he handed me a steaming cup of coffee, his credit rate going up a little more as I sipped it and found out he must have remembered how I took it because it was pretty much perfect.

"Oh, we will," Cullen chuckled, revving the engine as he got in. _Show off_. "We're not going to the gym, though."

Well, that sounded ominous. "No?" I croaked, trying to calm myself with more coffee.

"I don't like working out indoors – it's much too stuffy and claustrophobic, and why would I do that anyway, when we're sitting on the brink of some of the most amazing scenery in America?" When he put it like that, it was hard to argue with him, so I didn't, nodding as I took another sip from my venti latte. "Besides, I don't think the gym's even open at this hour."

"Aha!" I cried in triumph. "So even you have to admit that this is a crazy time of day to be up."

"Not a chance!" He argued back, grinning through his words as he deftly steered his car through the empty streets like someone who'd traveled these same roads about as often as one could count. "It's early, I'll give you that, but it's the perfect time of day to run and it's not like you would have had the time to work out at any other time today."

I narrowed my eyes, hating the fact that he was right. Between classes, my job and my homework, I would be happy if I was finished anywhere before nine this evening. And crashing on my bed would probably be about the only thing on my mind by then.

"You'll grow to love it," he mused, seeming so convinced that I would somehow develop a fondness for physical exercise that I would have been fascinated, had it not been an assumption he made about me.

"I doubt it!" I snorted. "Jasper did tell you that I never did anything that could be considered exercise in my life outside of the required PE classes, right?"

Cullen nodded, his face not revealing anything. "Which is why I'm taking you out for a run to work up your endurance before I'm going to let you get anywhere near a proper speed bike. At this point – even in spite of how many hours you've sat your ass down in front of a TV to watch it – you wouldn't even know what to do with it."

I had a strange feeling he was right, not that I would ever admit to it.

"We're here," he said, parking the car in a small parking lot off the side of the road that was surprisingly full considering the time of day and the fact that it was way out in the middle of nowhere; which brought me to my next question.

"Where is 'here, exactly?" I pressed my lips together, the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach getting stronger and stronger with each second I had to wait for his reply.

"It's the start of one of the best tracks you could ever use to strengthen your endurance," he nodded, not giving anything away but not doing anything to soothe my worries either. "The track-and-field team sometimes uses it for practice runs but there're lots of other people running here as well."

_Right_. The regular hangout spot of all the sporty people in Seattle who had an attitude against working out indoors.

_Nice_. _Not._

"So what do we do?" I wanted to know, trying to get some mental picture of the kind of torture he had in store for me. Because that was the only certainty I had at the moment: it would be torture. "Run around in circles until we collapse?"

Cullen's grin was ever-present as he pushed away from the car, walking over to a little grassy patch right in front of where the track veered off into the woods. "Depends on how long it will take you to collapse." He rolled his eyes at my glare as he began to stretch, knowing as well as I did that there was nothing to brag about when it came to my stamina. "The track is about four miles long, which is great to start out with for now."

"Four miles?" I gasped, knowing I had trouble even walking as far as that. Running it was simply impossible.

"Don't worry," he chortled, "we're not going to run all of that. What we're going to do today is called interval-training. It's where you shift from moments of high intensity training to a more lower pace that allows you to catch your breath again before another high-intensity round starts up."

I'd heard a little bit about this interval stuff during my intake at the gym and had even undergone it on a treadmill but that didn't exactly mean that I was looking forward to experiencing a second round of it. Let alone a four mile round. "Don't you have classes today?" I tried to deflect as I slowly began to stretch my tight muscles, my voice a few octaves higher than it usually was as I attempted my last ditch effort to get out of this. "I mean…this running shit is all fine and dandy and stuff, but Professor Jarmond expects me in his Human Rights Law class at ten thirty sharp or he's going to have my ass."

"Don't worry; I'll get you there on time – showered and all." For some reason he seemed so sure of himself. I wondered if he'd ever seen me run.

Or even walk.

I heard a little beep as he set some sort of alarm on his watch before turning his attention back to me. "Ready?"

I nodded mutely, too busy contemplating my imminent death to complain any more as Cullen set off, his pace not too fast for me to have trouble keeping up as he jogged off with a smoothness that revealed his experience with all of this shit, as well as a pair of toned legs that kind of had me mesmerized for a while, even if they were hidden by a pair of sweat pants. _Fuck, me! I never knew a man's legs could get you kind of hot and bothered like that!_ "Are you coming or what?"

I blushed, realizing he'd caught me staring as I finally set off too, nothing with some surprise that the track seemed to bounce back a little underneath my shoes, making it easier to move and keep up with Cullen as I joined him.

"So you've got Human Rights Law today?" he asked, his voice as smooth and controlled as if he wasn't doing anything much at the moment.

I nodded, too focused on keeping my breathing under control to answer him properly. _What? No one ever told me I was supposed to talk while I worked myself into a frenzy. _

"What's that like?" he went on, his pace quickening a little as he pulled in front of me at a narrower stretch of track.

"It's…okay," I answered, panting a little as I tried to form words.

"Keep talking," he instructed, falling in pace next to me again as the trail grew wider once more. "The best way to work on your stamina is to keep yourself from crossing your Target Rate, which is the heart rate your body benefits most from."

_Shit_! As grateful as I was that Cullen was willing to sacrifice his time to train me, I never in a million years factored in the possibility of actually having to talk to him about other stuff than how fast, heavy, etcetera, my training had to be or how he was doing shit to my body that made me want to crawl in a ditch and die.

"So how…do you know…what my…Target Rate is?" I asked, really starting to feel the strain of running now.

"I don't," he spoke, grinning back at my incredulous look. "We'll go over how you determine it and set you up with a watch with a built in heart rate monitor on our way back but, in lieu of a Target Rate to work with, we'll just have to play it by ear."

"Talking," I muttered, my feet starting to drag a little as my legs grew tired.

"Exactly." If I didn't know better, Cullen sounded almost proud, which, in turn, made me glow up like a light bulb even in spite of the fact that I still hated him and was really starting to resent myself for turning into some senseless suck up. "As long as you're still able to talk relatively smoothly, your body hasn't pushed past its Target Rate yet. When talking starts to grow impossible and you're starting to experience that burning tension in your chest…"

"That's when…the shit…hits…the fan," I finished, almost shouting out a hallelujah when the alarm on his watch went off and Cullen slowed down to a normal walk.

"Close enough." He chuckled, fidgeting with his watch before leading the way. "It's what my trainer told me at the start of my first amateur one-day trial: keep yapping at whoever's cycling next to you, even if it's a complete stranger. They'll always talk back because…well, they're pretty much in the same boat."

I had to wait until my breath returned before I asked my next question, my brain simply too preoccupied with sucking enough air into my system to form words. "It's a great way of making new friends, I guess." I smiled, trying to picture myself chatting up a total stranger as I climbed the first gruesome miles of the Alp. "Or did you just talk about how you were going to run your opponents off the road or something?"

"Nah," he grinned back. "Amateur cycling's a pretty friendly sport. If someone's hurt or stranded by the side of the road with a flat tire or some mechanical problem, there's always loads of people stopping to see if they can help, even if that means missing their own target time. It's kind of a community on its own. "

Before I had the chance to ask any more questions, his blasted alarm went off again. This time Cullen slowed until he was behind me, allowing me to set the pace and put what he'd just taught me into practice.

We spent this leg of our workout discussing some of the papers we were working on; his essay on the hygienic circumstances encountered amongst the indigenous tribes of Tanzania sounding far more interesting and exciting than mine on recent developments in interrogation techniques, though if his million questions about those techniques were anything to go on, Cullen found it all completely fascinating.

Which I thought was weird.

"You…..never…told…me…there…were…hills…on…this…trac k," I panted, sweat dripping from my forehead and trickling down my back in disgusting little rivulets as I soldiered up the little baby Alp, cursing its existence with every step. _Hurts. It hurts. Gonna die. Ouch. _

"I was afraid you weren't going to get out of the car if I did," his steady, though maybe a little breathless, voice sounded from behind me. _I swear, if he's ogling my ass right now, I'm going to kill him. _

Not that I had the energy to actually look back and see if he was.

Mercifully, his watch went off again just as we reached the top, allowing me to save face and not pass out on him as I leaned against a tree for a few moments in a desperate bid to catch my breath.

Not that he was having any of that, though, the urge to slap him as he tugged me along becoming greater and greater. But then again, if I left him unconscious, how the hell was I ever going to find my way back to the car?

It was in that moment that I realized even Hansel and Gretel outsmarted me when it came to working out, leaving a little trail of breadcrumbs to find their way back out of the forest. _Damn, why couldn't I have been smart like them? Oh, right, that's because the big, bad wolf is working you to death, that's why! _

"So…what is it…you…study…exactly?" I panted, trying to hedge for more time since even the thought of running right then was enough to make me pass out. "I don't…think…you ever told me."

"I'm majoring in anthropology," he answered, his voice smooth as ever. As if he hadn't just run up a bloody mountain.

I didn't have the faintest notion what that was but it sounded like something suspiciously 'hippie'. "And what…does that make you?" _Besides unemployed, that is. _

"An anthropologist?" He chuckled running his hand through his slightly damp hair as his watch went off again, my body groaning in tune with my voice as I decided to force myself into another round of jogging while he blabbed on. "For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to travel and be an anthropologist – studying all the different tribes and races of the world – will allow me to do just that."

"But…what…if…you…grow…tired…of…that?" I wheezed, my breathlessness coming sooner and sooner as my body started to wear down, unused as it was to all the exertion.

"I'll try to find a job at some museum or maybe write for a magazine or something," he offered. "Hell, maybe I'll even settle down in some quirky, remote village and write a book about the people I find there."

"You…should…really…head…up…to…Forks, then!" I remarked. God knew he would find enough material to write a whole anthology about the people of my town. He'd need two hundred pages alone to explain the Newtons.

"Maybe I will," he grinned, almost making me bump straight into him when he suddenly stopped, his hand immediately going back to his watched as he stepped out into the open again.

_Fuck me, I've made it!_

My eyes widened as I hunched over, happily sucking in deep breaths now that I knew there would be no more running for today. "Good…God!" I panted, not really caring if I was going to get my ass wet as I let myself fall back into the grass, my ass immediately absorbing the dew.

Well, it's not like I wasn't already all sweaty and gross.

"You did great, Bella!" Edward praised me, still looking as fresh as a daisy as he lounged against the side of his car, drinking from his water bottle.

I didn't know why but his praise made me feel like I'd just won the lottery, my chest still burning with the strain of my workout as I beamed back at him. "Thanks!" As worn out and sore as I felt, his words made me feel ten feet tall at that moment, even if my ass was soggy and with my hair sticking to my head in a scraggly, clammy mess.

Looking up after my breath had finally slowed down enough to not let the average doctor call out for a crash cart, I asked the one question that had been burning on my lips ever since we got here. "Can I go home now?"

"After we stretch again," Cullen promised, promptly squatting down into some weird position that made it look like he was about to poop.

And it felt even more ridiculous mimicking it. Besides, my body really didn't want to do all that shit. It wanted to sleep. "I hate stretching," I grumbled, hopping around awkwardly on one leg as I 'stretched my quadriceps'. I think that was just Cullen's ruse to get me to make a complete ass out of myself.

"I bet you'd hate getting injured even more," he argued, in a reason I couldn't find fault with no matter how much I wanted to.

Luckily I was spared further contortions, the work out definitely over for the day as we walked back to the car, Cullen cranking up the heat as he backed out of the lot and turned the car back towards the city as he yammered on about how to find out Target Rates and how I could borrow his spare heart meter.

I just stared out of the window, watching the green slowly fade into grey as my surroundings started to get more familiar, my mind blissfully blank as my body felt like it accomplished more in these few hours than it had in a lifetime of doing nothing.

I wasn't even so opposed to the idea when he dropped me off at my dorm again with a promise (or threat?) to do it all again the next day. _Maybe I did lose my mind out there in the forest. Maybe some evil piece of fauna snuck up from behind me and snatched it when I wasn't looking or too busy breathing. _

_Or maybe I'm just starting to like this? _

One thing was for sure, though: showering had never felt as good as it had that morning; the murkiness of the forest and the damp cold of the cooled sweat and dew washing away, leaving me refreshed and with skin tingling like you only hear about in commercials.

I was in class fifteen minutes early, happily sagging down into my seat, my legs feeling a strange and almost pleasurable kind of heavy and my bagel never tasting as delicious as it did right then.

There was a strange smile on my face that wouldn't leave no matter how hard I tried.

And I didn't even know where it came from.

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_**One thing I definitely do not miss is really morning training. Like Bella I'm not a morning person and epic tales of my early morning grumpiness are still being told by my former teammates. Still, there's no denying that nothing tastes as good as a post-workout breakfast. **_

_**Thoughts?**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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_**Thank you to my kickass beta-team, Jadsmama and LadySharkey1 for whipping this chapter into shape.  
**_

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**Lesson learned: never go bike-shopping with a bunch of guys**

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**6. Bike**

A couple of weeks later and I was holding my own on the track, not exactly running around like a pro yet, but not getting breathless embarrassingly soon either. I was improving. And in the wake of my improving stamina, I was finding it easier and easier to spend my time with Edward. Sure, things were still a bit awkward at times, and I really didn't like the waking up at the ass crack of dawn or the running until I felt like puking part of our friendship but the more I hung out with him, I was beginning to find that he wasn't so bad after all.

Besides, hanging out with him was proving to be very beneficial for my general health and fitness.

And I liked it.

Even the spinning was starting to become slightly less torturous, though it still left me a panting, sweaty mess after every session and begging for mercy throughout. It was just that I didn't think I was going to die anymore.

Which was progress.

But my improving stamina wasn't the reason for my good mood that day – well not the only reason. I would finally be buying my first racing bike, which meant I would take one huge leap closer to the Alp. I was quite ridiculously excited, even if it meant I had to sit through dinner with my sister, her boyfriend _and_ Cullen first. Guess who came up with that plan?

Not me.

The only saving grace in this scheme of Alice's was that mom had been unable to tag along, what with she and her husband being too busy sucking up to the rich people of Seattle to be bothered with her offspring buying bikes to pay their respect to the man she pretty much hated.

As I slowly started to get used to the idea of dad no longer being there to talk to whenever something funny or really shitty happened in my life, I found that I still felt no big inclination to get in touch my either my mom or my sister; which was kind of strange and not what I would have expected to happen.

It's not like we had ever been close or anything. Apart from the mandatory visits I'd been forced to put up with until I turned eighteen, we didn't really keep I touch all that much. Alice and I had always been fire and water – neither two would ever mix without the one destroying the other. My mom had tried to love me like she did Alice but I don't think either one of us had been fooled. She was like Alice in pretty much every aspect of her character and what's more she hated my dad and the easy way of living in small town Forks which I'd come to know and love so well, which pretty much meant that she and I had nothing to talk about.

When mom and dad got divorced, she somehow managed to get custody of both Alice and me – though I guess with dad's job and the irregular hours that came with it, I couldn't really blame the judge for ruling in her favor, even if I'd come to really resent the verdict.

Who I did blame, though, was mom, for taking me all the way to Seattle with her, and away from dad, which was something that happened completely out of the blue for me. One day I was coming home from school, a tentative play date with one of my friends penciled in for the afternoon, the next I was starting first grade in a different school in a large city that seemed to swallow me whole.

And dad was nowhere around to smile at me, pat me on the head, and tell me everything was going to turn out just fine, like always, every time I'd felt so completely freaked out in the past.

Looking back on it I suspect mom believed that as long as she got me away from my dad's influence, she might still somehow succeed in brainwashing the tom-boy out of me or something, because as soon as we moved into our new home, she started to slowly but surely, take all the stuff I loved away from me.

Lego's and toy cars were replaced by dolls with huge eyes that scared the crap out of me when I got home after that disastrous first day at school.

My comfy clothes suddenly all developed holes or something else that made her throw them out and she would then buy me all these dresses and skirts in colors that hurt my eyes, which felt like sandpaper and made running and playing an even more arduous undertaking for an accident-prone girl like me.

When, one black day, she decided to also take away my fishing rod – the one dad had given me for my sixth birthday when he finally deemed me old enough to sit next to him on the dock and shut up for long enough to actually catch a fish – I'd had enough.

It took two weeks before mom finally ceded and let me go back to my dad. Two weeks of screaming fights, destroying all the clothes and scary toys she'd bought for me and threatening to take my rampage to school and really make a spectacle out of myself.

I never looked back.

Well, apart from the required holidays and summer visits which mandatory in the new custody arrangement.

Mom and Alice…they just weren't my kind of people, I guess. And the fact that they were my family didn't mean so much to me that I felt I had to endure them just for the sake of appearances. Besides, dad and Grammy Swan had always been more than enough for me when it came time to giving me the love and attention a child deserves.

Thinking of them made me miss the both of them even more.

I could remember coming back from school to find Grammy Swan hunched over the stove in our little house, the fragrant smell of whatever stew she was cooking in a huge pot on the fire greeting me even before I'd opened the backdoor, only slightly overpowered by the scent of freshly baked soda bread coming from the oven underneath it. We'd sit and drink tea, her listening while I prattled on about insignificant stuff that had happened at school until dad came home, his eyes crinkling as he spotted us and his body still smelling of cigars and the outdoors as he hugged me.

Those were the best days of my life.

The good mood I'd started my day out with dampened as the melancholy of so many happy childhood memories with my dad started to take post; the remembrance bittersweet as I thought about how amazing my dad had been, taking care of me and the town, at the same time.

He really was a superhero to me – though without the cape and the weird spandex outfit.

But remembering was a bittersweet thing, of course, since at the end I always ended up getting hit by that big old hammer again as I realized no more happy memories would be added.

They were both gone.

All that remained of those happy memories was little ole me. And I was barely holding on as it was, with school, work, training and a void so huge it seemed to suck all the happiness away weighing me down like Atlas' burden.

I was a wreck by the time I was supposed to meet the rest of the gang for dinner at some rib house not far from campus; my mood shifting from grief to determination about every five minutes as I held onto the promise I'd made to dad on his deathbed.

I was worn out, both emotionally and physically from my run with Cullen earlier that day, which didn't exactly make for good company. Still, no Swan ever backed out of an agreement. So seven thirty found me strutting into the restaurant, dressed in clothes comfortable enough to go shopping in while still dressy enough to not make it look like I'd crawled out of a dumpster or something.

I could barely resist the urge to duck down into some other booth as I finally spotted my sister, almost straddling her boyfriend as she fed him peanuts like he were some sort of trained monkey, while Emmett and Rose looked on with thinly veiled fascination.

Poor guy! To be emasculated like that in front of a whole room of people who'd probably went to the same school as you did! If it had been me, I would have slowly garroted her with my belt, cramming what remained of the bowl of peanuts into her mouth as she slowly chocked to death. _Did I mention I was in a foul mood? _

Alice only looked up as I slid into the booth, her brow arching in distaste as she cast a glance at what I was wearing while muttering the coolest of 'hellos' before going back to what she was doing before I joined them.

Alice had never cared much for the way I was dressed, not that she was the one to talk. _I mean, look at her! _She was dressed in some horrible Pepto Bismol-colored thing that was probably supposed to pass for a dress but simply lacked the fabric to be labeled as such, and that appeared to be painted on her body.

On Rose an outfit like that would have looked great because she wore it with the attitude to match. On my sister it just screamed 'please take advantage of me', which Jasper seemed to be doing to the fullest.

"Do you know that the average peanut dish in a bar is covered in fecal germs?" I casually remarked after putting in my order for a beer. "So while the two of you are engaging in your foreplay over there, you're actually feeding your boyfriend peanuts with a side order of raw sewage, sis."

Alice glared, getting off of Jasper's lap as her boyfriend's face started to take on a slightly greenish hue. _Yep, that's me, sis: mood killer extraordinaire. Try to see it as payback for when you kissed the boy I had the hots for, back in the summer of 2006, just to prove that guys are more into girly girls._

"Charming as ever, I see!" I jumped a little at the sudden sound of Cullen's voice right by my ear, the big smirk on his face telling me that was exactly the effect he'd been going for when he snuck up on me.

Glaring quietly I scooted down, biting back some bitchy comment about why he had to sit on my side of the booth when there was plenty of room next to the love birds. Then again, who wanted to sit next to people when you knew that at some point during the evening they were bound to start feeling each other up under the table?

"Did you get Ben to let us in?" Jasper wanted to know after he and Cullen had bumped fists in greeting.

Cullen nodded, ordering a drink when the waitress came by with my beer. "Actually, he was pretty eager to help when I told him why we were coming."

"He'd better be!" Rose snorted, sipping some concoction that had half a fruit bowl sticking out of it. "From what I gather you're about to spend a fortune in his store. If it were me, I'd bend over backwards to accommodate you."

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Jasper answered quietly. It was only then that I noticed how he and Cullen hadn't laughed at Rose's remark like the rest of us had. "Ben actually lost his oldest daughter to cancer three years ago."

"I met him at a Livestrong event a couple of years ago," Cullen took over, his voice as sad as all of us were feeling; sad and embarrassed for making fun of something so serious. "He's been my go-to man for all my cycling gear ever since."

"I'm sorry, Cullen," Rose muttered, her hand clenching around mine in support as my mind was jolted back to dad and the way he looked on that last day.

"You didn't know," Cullen spoke, the waitress dropping by our table again with his beer just in time to chase the awkwardness away, especially when Emmett decided to start ordering ribs since apparently he was 'ready to start eating the table' if he didn't get fed soon.

The atmosphere only mellowed out again by the time our food was put on the table; everyone, apart from Alice, digging into to the ribs and fries without worrying about getting their hands dirty while my sister looked completely out of place, eating her salad with a face like she'd just swallowed a spider.

_If that's what it takes to be a skinny bitch, I'd rather stick to my size ten, thank you very much! _I just shook my head, crunching down on another bite of meat that just seemed to fall from the bone the minute your teeth made contact with it, a bit of barbecue sauce trickling down to my chin.

"Here, let me get that." Cullen chuckled, his hand ducking underneath mine – which were still holding onto my ribs for dear life – as he wiped the sauce away with a napkin. Over our weeks of training together, we'd grown into something dangerously close to friends.

I hadn't forgotten the aftermath of gay-gate yet but through working out side by side, I had started to trust his judgment and even looked forward to our sessions, even if our conversations remained far too safely superficial to ever start calling him my friend.

"Thanks!" I chuckled, looking up to find the whole booth staring at the two of us. "What?" I scowled, my cheeks heating up in embarrassment as I realized what they were all thinking. "I had fucking barbecue sauce on my chin. Mind your own damn business!"

"O-kay," Emmett sang, waggling his eyebrows at me as he snatched the last of the ribs from the plate.

Throughout the rest of dinner I tried to stay as far away from Cullen as our close quarters allowed me, feeling not as triumphant as I would have thought when he appeared to be doing the same. _Strange_.

We said goodbye to Rose, who had a birthday party to get to after dinner and headed over to Ben's bike store, which turned out to be huge. He did just sell bikes but about everything that went with riding them.

I smiled, watching Cullen and Ben greet each other with big smiles and friendly pats on the back; Cullen's attitude immediately shifting from the slight tenseness I'd noted at the diner and even before when they were having coffee to the laidback person that spent almost every morning running side by side with her. _I guess sports looks good on him, huh?_

My eyes wandered around the store, taking in all sorts of bikes as Cullen made his introductions and only focusing back on the group when my ear started picking up all sorts of jargon. And the worst thing about it was that all the guys – including Emmett – started looking really serious, like they were curing cancer or something, as they sprouted off one ridiculously incomprehensible word after another.

I wandered off after about five minutes, when their discussion about the right sort of 'crank set' to tackle the Alp started to look more and more like some sort of pissing contest, with everyone – again, including Emmett who, as far as I knew, had never even touched a racing bike – claiming their opinion was the only sane one to go with.

After about fifteen more minutes of waiting for them to be done comparing dicks, I was really starting to grow from merely frustrated to angry. And in my rage I found one very unlikely ally.

Alice.

She'd tried to melt into the little huddle of amateur bike technicians but after about twenty minutes of acting like she had a fucking clue about what they were saying, she finally gave up and started wandering through the haphazardly displayed bikes, doing that thing where someone pretends to know exactly what all the stuff can do, when, in truth, I doubted she even knew which end of the bike to sit on.

After a solid fifteen minutes of sheer entertainment, watching my sister bluff her way through a bicycle store, she started to looked more bored by the second, her eyes narrowing as they flashed to the little huddle of puffed up idiots at regular intervals until, finally, they connected with mine.

I gave her a little understanding nod, rolling my eyes at the guys as I made my way over to her. "Are you as sick of this as I am?"

"God, yes!" she groaned. "We've been in here for almost an hour by now and so far I haven't even parked my ass on a bike yet! They never told me that buying one didn't actually include touching one."

"Do you think that if I pushed this one,-" My fingers gingerly closed around the handle bar of the first bike in a lineup that looked an awful lot like a game of dominos, "one of them will finally pull their head out of their ass long enough to see what's going on?"

"Don't even think about it!" And just like that, the Alice I knew and didn't love was back, looking at me like I was some kind of slimy slug stuck underneath her shoes. "If you make a spectacle out of us, I swear I'll get Mom to yank your funding for this trip."

Did she just actually threaten to have me thrown out of a trip that was supposed to be just me and dad's ashes? "Like I need Mom's fucking money anyway!" I sneered, fighting the urge to strangle her. Or better yet: throw a bike at her head. "This isn't some kind of road trip, Alice, even though God only knows you apparently think it is since you started to randomly invite people to tag along. This is about _Dad_; about doing what he always dreamed of doing _with me_ but never got round to because that fucking disease killed him!" I drew breath, my whole frame shaking with anger as tears started to pool in the corners of my eyes. "You may have shanghaied yourself into this trip but that doesn't make you our fucking leader, Alice. You'd do good to remember that."

"Okay," the still foreign voice of Ben Cheney, owner of the store we'd been hanging out in for the past hour, spoke behind me. "I think this would be a great time to start looking at some bikes."

We split up into two teams; Alice and Jasper following Ben's assistant to the back of the store while Emmett and I trudged on after Ben and Cullen to the side to look at some options.

After that, we were outside again in half an hour, all four of us in possession of a bike that would be custom made to our own size and specifications and having learned a very valuable lesson – well I did, anyway.

Never go bike shopping with a group of guys ever again.

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_**Thoughts? **_


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya! **

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**7. Burn**

"You never mentioned you were teaching a kiddie class!" Outwardly I was seething with rage, but inwardly I was just mortally humiliated as I pulled up to the bicycle Velodrome to find that the beginners class Cullen had mentioned would be good for me to take during the start of my road cycling adventures was filled with boisterous twelve year old boys who already seemed to be able to hold their own on their bikes much better than I could ever dream of.

Cullen merely shrugged, apparently knowing of no evil. "I thought it would be good practice."

"And you don't care that I look like a fucking idiot?" I cried, blushing when a nearby boy looked at me wide-eyed for cursing at his instructor.

"I don't see what your problem is." Hard-taskmaster-Cullen was back, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he stared me down. "And, for the record: I'd like it if you watched your mouth around these kids."

"Sorry," I muttered, smirking guiltily at the kid who'd gone on to trace figure-of-eight laps around the area we were in. He didn't really appear to be mentally scarred by my crass remarks or anything. In fact, it looked like the little Casanova was showing off a little bit more to impress me.

I'd have felt honored if it didn't border so perilously close to something illegal.

"Apology accepted," Cullen grumbled, though I might have detected a smirky undertone in his voice. "Now the choice is up to you: you can stay and learn something you'll put to good use on Saturday when we'll be going on our first outdoor ride along with the rest of the class, or go and sulk somewhere else. I have a class to teach."

And with that he turned around, his attention on the fifteen or so kids wearing the green colors of the cycling club as they lined up by the side of the banked track, their bikes in one hand as they looked like a proud army of sweaty, red-faced hobbits caught in a heat wave.

Not even believing myself for doing this, I grudgingly joined them, probably looking completely alien in my black on black racing gear, even if my 5'5" frame wasn't that much taller than the average boy in the lineup.

"Now listen up, guys," Cullen started, standing before us like a general inspecting his troops. "We've been practicing our technique indoors for the past couple of weeks now, discussing all the parts of our bikes and how to fix them when they break while we're on the road."

One boy in the center of our lineup raised his hands, prompting Cullen to look up. "Yes, Riley?"

"My dad says I don't need to know how to fix my bike. If something happens I should just call him whenever something breaks and he'll come to pick me up." From the intonation in his voice and the smugness of his demeanor I gathered that Riley was some kind of privileged little snot whose family probably looked down on a little manual work and greasy hands.

"That's all fine for now," Cullen answered with the patience of a saint, "but what about in a couple of months when we may be as far as thirty miles away from the city limits or even farther? Would you really like to wait for your dad to drive all the way out there when you know you can fix a flat tire or a chain that's run off within ten minutes yourself?"

I had to hide a grin when Cullen's superior argument left the little brat speechless, the rest of the boys growing restless by the time he returned his attention back to the group as a whole. "Today, we're going to give this track a try," he went on, "and believe me it's not as scary as it looks."

I smirked nervously, looking at the dangerously steep angles of the course, wondering if I was more likely to break something or get second degree burns when I would fall down. Because I would, that much was certain.

"But before we head out there to give it a try, I want to introduce my friend, Bella, to you all," Cullen went on, my cheeks heating up as suddenly all attention was on me. "She's new to all of this, like you, but she'll have to pick everything up really fast as she's training to climb Alp d'Huez with me next July. She's only being doing this for a couple of weeks so go easy on her, huh?"

And just like that, my street cred with the little guys increased, their eyes filled with reverence and respect as they stared at me like I'd just announced that I was going to join Santa's crew of elves. _I mean, I'm small enough to qualify, am I not?_

"I'm sure she can count on your support on the track," Cullen finished, my street cred going back down as they all realized I didn't have a fucking clue of what I was doing. But still, the hands I shook as I was formally introduced to Sam, Jake, Riley, Liam, Peter and a lot of other little boys who's names were far too outlandish for me to remember, I noticed how they puffed out their chests a little as they offered me a clammy handshake.

Again, it would have been cute if it didn't border on something illegal.

After our introductions, all the boys got on their bikes, leaving me with no good reason to stall as I too, cautiously mounted my new iron steed and warily set out of the course, my hands clenching around the steer bars like I was afraid the damned thing was going to take off without me until my knuckles started to hurt and my whole body rigid with fear and stress. I felt my bike angle ever so slightly on the part of the track that veered upwards but, for the time being, at least, I remained firmly attached to the surface of the track, even when it seemed to be on a ninety degree angle of 'terra firma'.

_Oh, dear baby Jesus, give me strength!_

"Keep up your pace, Bella!" Cullen yelled from the other side of the course. "The slower you go, the bigger the risk of falling."

"Okay!" I squealed back, my bike wobbling a little less as I picked up my pace while the army of cycling hobbits raced passed me like the risk of imminent death meant nothing to them, whooping and shouting cheers at each other as they raced to have the fastest lap time. Taking short gasps through my nose up to the point where I was starting to hyperventilate a little, I kept on moving the pedals around going what felt like ninety miles an hour – though the speedometer on my steering wheel still indicated that I was only going at a whopping eight.

A strange thing happened, though, as I finished my first cycle around the course: I was actually starting to trust that, provided no calamity would interfere, I might be able to stay on my bike after all. I mean, the hobbits seemed to be making it work as they zoomed by on their bikes, so why would my bike be the only one that couldn't cope with a simple spin around the track?

After all, didn't the guys spend a crazy amount of time deciding my bike was the best one out there?

"How are you doing?" he asked, when I spun by him on my fourth or fifth time around the arena. "Are you starting to get a feel for the track?"

I nodded, concentrating very hard as I edged near the side of the track where he was standing, my hands shaking as I brought the bike to a standstill and dismounted. "It's going great so far. The outfit still feels a bit weird though."

"We all get that feeling at first," Cullen nodded, grinning knowingly. "Are you wearing underwear?"

If my eyes would have gotten any bigger they would have popped out of their sockets, I was sure. "I beg your pardon?"

The way he blushed would have been cute if I wasn't so squicked out by his kind of stalkerish remark, my brows still sternly furrowed as I watched him fidget nervously. "I'm only asking because it's a pretty common thing about first-time cyclists and something that could really bother you when you start to spend more and more time on the saddle," he defended himself. "The edges of your underwear start to dig into your skin because of the tightness of the Lycra, and that creates friction which can cause irritation and even skin abrasions."

"So you're saying I should ditch my underwear?" I gasped, the thought of going commando on top of all the challenges I was facing out there enough to freak me out a little.

"It's for the best." Cullen shrugged as if it was the most common thing to do to flop on your bike commando-style in pants that seemed too thin to even cover you up. "Now get back out there. You still have about fifty or so laps to complete before we can even start thinking about calling it a day."

After that, training was pretty uneventful, with Cullen letting us alternate slow laps with more up-tempo ones until we were all completely worn out and panting.

But then again, what was new?

The next challenge came on Saturday, as I was gearing up for my first real road challenge along with the rest of the team, the saddle still feeling far too hard and narrow underneath my ass as I got up and sped on my way to our meeting point.

Well, sped…I don't think Fabian Cancellara, holder of multiple time trial world championships, would have agreed that my leisurely eleven mile per hour pace was quite an accomplishment.

I noticed that my feet rested comfortably in the little strappy nests on top of my pedals and my hands not so cramped around the handle bars anymore as they had been. The observation made me proud.

I had chickened out at the last moment and got a pair of toe strap pedals instead of the toe clips Emmett and the rest of the cycling world favored, the difference between the two being that where you could just push your shoes into the straps to be somewhat connected to the pedals, the clips actually secured your feet to them. Of course I knew this only meant that somewhere down the line, when I'd developed enough trust in my bike and my own ability to not fall off it, I would have to come in again and have the straps exchanged for clips but for now, even the thought alone of venturing into Seattle traffic while being joined to my bike with clips that would only gave way if your feet moved at a certain angle gave me the creeps.

I had no desire to die young.

I also had no desire to listen to Cullen's advice and forgo underwear when getting into my new cycling shorts. I mean, it was just a really thin piece of material with a hygienic liner sowed to the inside. Even if I could get over the fact that my vagina would actually be touching that weird pad thing, the fact that only _this_ had to happen and my ass would be exposed to the winds wasn't a very appealing one. I mean, I'd seen it happen in pro-cycling races where cyclists were forced to complete a stage in the Tour de France bare-assed and often sporting horrible bruises and abrasions because their shorts were worth squat when they came in contacts with the asphalt roads.

So when I joined my friends (and Alice) that Saturday afternoon, I was still relishing in the safe sensation that my granny panties would protect me from any harm or road rash that could come to me. And if one of the guys would comment, I'd have a very stern talk with them about staring at my ass, since that was the only way they could have ever found out.

I was wrong.

About eight miles into our trek, Cullen's prophecy about underwear and cycling pants really started to come true; the uncomfortable burn in my loins increasing with every new mile we rode…until it started to show.

At least…to Cullen.

He shook his head and looked at me in his annoying I-tried-to-tell-you way but stayed silent as he passed me by on his way to take the lead for awhile, alternating with Emmett and Jasper in the spot that caught the most wind while Alice and I stuck to the 'easier' positions in the middle of our little group.

If I hadn't been so caught up in my own pain, I would have noticed how Alice was starting to struggle too; her pants getting louder and louder as we got closer to the city again until she collapsed into the grass near the spot where she and Jasper had parked their car since they were living on the other side of the city and had driven out here instead of cycling cross-town to our meeting point, her cheeks as red as strawberries and her chest expanding and contracting on an almost dangerous scale. _I guess doing zumba two times a week doesn't exactly make you Tour the France material after all, huh, sister dear? _

Getting out of my cycling gear back home I had to admit that Cullen had been completely right and I had been just too stubborn for my own good, a small yelp leaving my throat as I stepped under the hot stream, normally such a joy after a workout, and the water came into contact with the abraded skin on my pubic bones.

_Just wait until Cullen finds out_. I groaned as I bit through the pain, barely managing to support my completely worn out frame against the shower wall. _There will be no working with him after this, smug bastard!_

* * *

_**Another lesson I, unfortunately, learned the hard way…..**_

_**Thoughts?**_


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya! **_

* * *

**8. Fight**

Again, I found myself walking funny for a couple of days after our first outdoor adventure. And again, it had nothing to do with getting laid.

Speaking of getting laid…

I had agreed to join Rose for party at some friend's place that night for the first time in a while since I would usually spend time caring for my dad in Forks and Emmett had a game and couldn't tag along with her like he usually did. It wasn't like I was some kind of mousy creature or a wannabe hermit or something – I had plenty of friends both around campus and back home and was enjoying the freedom and room for experimenting college life gave to me. I just didn't like the whole party scene, where people were only trying to impress others in order to feel good, or at least better about themselves.

Give me an evening with a few friends at a local pub and I'd be more than happy to tag along.

"What are you gonna wear?" Rosalie asked, putting the finishing touches to her hair. Over our time together she'd gotten used to the fact that 'getting ready' for me meant something that could be done in a fifteen minute timeframe while she needed that much time along to work on 'making her eyes pop'. Or whatever the fuck that meant.

"Pants and a shirt?" I offered, listlessly rifling through one of my textbooks.

"You should wear that new sweater we bought the other day," Rose thought along. "The red one?"

"Yeah." Grudgingly I got off the bed, stripping out of my comfy sweats and getting into a pair of skinny jeans that made my three day old battle scars sting all over again and the red shirt my friend had made me buy on our last shopping trip. It was okay, as far as sweaters went. It did the trick in covering me up but the wide neckline left one of my shoulders bare, making it just sexy enough to wear to the kind of shindig I was dragged off to that night.

"You know…" Rose sang, pouting her lips as she applied some gloss. "I heard Siobhan mention Jared's coming tonight."

"Really?" I tried to sound disinterested but between my ever-treacherous skin tone and the way my hands pulled at the sleeve of my shirt, making it drop even lower, I didn't think my plan worked.

I'm met Jared during Introduction Week last year, where he was one of the volunteers to show us around campus and point out all the important stuff we needed to know. We'd hit if off pretty much from minute one, his killer looks making me feel miles out of my league but his easy going character putting me almost immediately at ease.

And then, we found out we ever shared the same passion: law enforcement.

As a third year psychology major he planned to specialize in the criminal psychology area and hopefully end up working as a profiler or in-jail counselor while I was focusing more on detective work. He was one of the few guys who even gave me the time of day after Cullen had started spewing nonsense about me and his help had been my saving grace in a lot of freshman classes, as he offered his advice and a second set of eyes to look over my papers before I handed them in.

I'd been too chicken shit to actually do something about my steadily growing infatuation, though, and since he'd never asked me out unless for a friendly cup of coffee either, I'd kind of given up after a couple of weeks.

And then, of course, dad became sick and we lost contact altogether.

"Siobhan also tells me he's still single." I jumped a little at the sound of Rosalie's voice right beside her ear. In all my quiet musings, I hadn't noticed Rose had left her side of the room and joined me in front of the mirror as I applied a little more makeup than I would usually do and put a little bit more care into styling my hair than normal.

"Oh?" Again, my attempt at feigning aloofness completely failed, much to Rose's amusement.

"Yep!" Rose grinned, looking awfully smug. "So you'd better get a move on Calamity Jane, before some skank beats you to him."

I scowled at her usage of my nickname – the one Emmett invented. "That's it! I'm not allowing you near your boyfriend again. He's a bad influence!"

"Or what?" Rose mocked. "You're going to shoot me?"

"Nope." I shook my head. With dad no longer here, my shooting days would be over until I joined the force. There was just no appeal in heading into the forest on a hunting party without him. It would only make my hurt that much more painful. "I've got a much more effective weapon up my sleeve…" I waited until my eyes had her full attention through the reflection in the mirror until I explained myself. "Secrets."

Watching understanding slowly dawn on Rose's face was a sight to behold, her face scrunched up in confusion before it paled, her mouth falling slightly open as she muttered, "You wouldn't…"

"Call me Calamity Jane again and you'll soon find out," I shrugged, switching the lights off as I cramming my wallet and phone into the most party-appropriate bag I owned. "Now how about we head over there before we're late?"

The party was already in full swing by the time we arrived at the apartment, just a couple of blocks away from the university and our dorms. Looking around me at the small huddles of people standing close, trying to speak over the loud thumps of bass music but mostly trying to look more important than the other people milling around, I was quick to surmise that I hadn't really missed anything during those months that I'd been away.

"Do you want to go find something to drink or do you want to mingle first?" Rose suggested.

"Drink!" I was quick to reply. God only knew that if I wanted to have any hope of sticking around for longer than ten minutes, I needed alcohol. _STAT_.

What apparently had changed while I was away–and thank the Lord for that–was the fact that the keg had been replaced by huge buckets filled with beer that did actually taste like beer as opposed to the piss.

Not knowing anyone, I just stuck by Rose's side for a while, trying to feign interest in small talk I couldn't care less about as I slammed down one beer after another, the slight haze of intoxication settling in making the whole thing a lot more bearable.

"There he is," Rose whispered, her index finger pointing away from the stem of her cocktail glass and towards a small group of guys that had just gotten in, one of them standing out like a unicorn amidst a field of donkeys.

Hair as dark as ebony. _Check_.

Eyes as blue as a tropical sea? _Check_.

Skin as pale as snow? _Check_.

Lips pouty and red as blood? _Check_.

Me flustered because I made him look like fucking Snow White in my mind? _Check_.

I swallowed, gulping down my beer for some Dutch courage as he caught me staring at him like some idiot, his eyes widening in surprise as he recognized me. _Shit, he's coming towards me! What do I do?_

"It's great seeing you here, Bella!" he greeted, surprising me even more by pulling me into a hug. "It's been a while."

"Yeah," I nodded; my mood saddening as I thought about the reason why. "I'm back now, though, as you can see." _Fucking hell, Bella! Idiot much?_

"And still studying to be a detective?" he asked, standing a little closer to me than a 'friend' probably would. _Yes!_

I nodded. "Unless the Bureau or the Agency makes me an offer I can't refuse." I smiled at the dream. It had been done before, I knew that, but usually recruiters went for the top students in their year, and between taking care of my dad and missing a lot of lectures last year, my grades hadn't been what they would have if I'd have been able to attend all my classes.

"It's not that crazy of an idea, actually." Jared smiled, motioning for one of his buddies to bring us fresh beers. "After all, it happened to me."

My eyes widened. "No shit!"

His grin grew under the awe he saw reflected in my eyes. "Some guys from the Bureau sought me out last year and offered to foot the bill for the rest of my education if I signed on with them for a couple of years."

"Wow!" I whispered, his pedestal rising by the minute.

"Yeah, I was pretty floored at first," Jared nodded, "but don't let the glamour fool you: it's not like I can sit back and relax now that my future is taken care of…well, for the time being at least. It's not like their offer doesn't come with some demands as well."

I smiled, coyly biting my lip. "And what are these demands you're speaking of?" I had to admit I was a bit rusty at flirting but judging from the way he leaned in, resting his hand against the wall just beside my head, I hadn't completely lost my mojo.

"That, Miss Swan, is for me to know and for you to find out," Jared whispered back, seizing the opportunity to get a little closer to me as some drunk guy bumped into us on his way over to the drinks table.

I was just about to make one hell of an innuendo-filled remark when suddenly Jared was yanked backwards, his smoldering blue eyes replaced by seething green as DEFCON Cullen entered the scene. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?" he barked, his nostrils flaring with unexplained rage.

What. The. Motherfuck?

"C-Cullen?" I stammered, cursing myself for not having some kickass, badass reaction like those you see in the movies. _Believe me, if I wasn't so shocked, I would dropkick the shit out of him right now._

"Outside. _Now_," he sneered, his hand already grabbing hold of me while I was still clamoring for some understanding of this whole situation.

What. The. Hell?

"I didn't know she had a boyfriend, man!" I heard Jared defend himself in response to something Edward barked at him as he was dragging me off to the hallway.

"Let. Me. Go!" I hissed, pulling myself out of his painful grip. "Jeez! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Next time you plan to throw away all my hard work, let me know first, okay?" He snarled, pacing up and down our narrow confines like a caged animal. "I don't like wasting my time."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I spat back, my hands balling into fists by my sides as I gave in to my rage. "If anyone has the right to be angry, it's me! I was just standing there, talking to a nice guy, when suddenly you barged in there like some mad bull. Care to explain why?"

"Because you're drinking and partying like some dumb bitch, while you expect me to get you ready for the Alp," he clarified, though I should have punched at least two of his teeth out for calling me a dumb bitch. In fact, I still really wanted to. "Do you know the effect alcohol has on your speed? And your stamina?"

"A few beers every now and then are hardly going to leave me handicapped," I growled, rolling my eyes at him. This_ is what he dragged me away from Jared for?_ "Besides, it's not like I'm aiming to improve Pantani's record anyway."

This whole thing was starting to really bug me: being out there in the hallway, berated like some naughty child while I should be in there talking to Jared. "Now, if you don't have anything else to say," I added, daring him to say something that would give me a reason to punch him, "I have a party to get back to."

His shoulders dropped in defeat, a slight shake of his head preceding his retreat as he went off again to do whatever he'd been doing until he just showed up and pounced at me like some psycho.

Kill defenseless little kittens?

Sabotage ambulances?

Pinch cute little kids playing outside?

Whatever!

I could see the damage was already done by the time I got in; Jared studiously ignoring me while he was chatting up some redhead bimbo with boobs the size of melons, the beer he'd asked his mate to get for me, now firmly clasped between her bony ass fingers and fake red nails.

_Fuck_.

The urge to party some more left as acutely as it had arisen when Jared walked in, the crowds barely parting even as I used my most colorful curse words as I went out in search for Rose, asking no questions as I plucked her from her group of friends and shepherded her towards the door.

"That bad, huh?" she sighed, commiserating as she wrapped her arm around me.

"Worse!" I groaned, sucking in some fresh air as we finally managed to worm our way out the door.

"Wanna talk about it?" Rose's heels clicked along the sidewalk as she downed the drink she'd been holding (and never let go of) when I'd started dragging her out the door and dumped the plastic cup.

"Just wait until we're back home," I grumped, crossing my arm in front of my chest as I stalked on at a steady pace, thinking about the colossal fuck-up my evening had turned out to be. And all of that because of one man.

That was the _second_ time Edward had messed up my social life.

* * *

_**Oh, no he didn't!**_

_**Thoughts? **_


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya! **_

* * *

**9. Trek**

"Do you think he's jealous?" Rose mused after hearing my never ending rant about Cullen running interference in my love life.

I snorted, looking at her in utter confusion. "What?"

"I mean…" Rose shrugged. "You and Jared did seem pretty cozy around the time Cullen came in."

I shook my head, laughing at her ridiculous idea. "You need to take a step back into reality, Rose! I'm not exactly the kind of girl that would have two guys fighting over her. I'd be happy if _one_ gave me the time of day."

"It's just a thought!" Rose huffed, quickly changing the subject to something much safer. "So what are your plans for the holiday? Staying in or going home?"

I groaned, falling back against my bed in a heap of self-pity. "Don't remind me!"

"I take it this means you're going home to 'mommy dearest'?" Rose snorted. _Cruel bitch_.

"It's not my home," I grumbled, wishing I could just fast forward to January and be done with it all. "It's the hideous monstrosity my mom lives in with Mister Moneybags. My home–_ex_-home–is being sold, remember?" Part of me felt bad about selling the house I grew up in, even though I knew I didn't have any option. It wasn't like I wanted to live in Forks when I was done in school so I knew the house was only going to sit there until I manned up and put that 'For Sale' sign on the front lawn, but still…

"So why don't you stay here?" Rose queried. "It's not like you don't have a good excuse with the course load you're carrying this semester and exams starting in December."

"I tried," I muttered, thinking back on a very unpleasant phone call I received a few weeks ago, "but my mom insists I spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with them. I think she smells another opportunity to yank me back into their world."

Rose chuckled; knowing as well as I did how thoroughly disappointed mom would be. "She never learns, does she?"

If only Rose knew how right she was with that statement.

Thanksgiving had turned into a complete disaster. Much to mom and Alice's dismay, dad had left the house to me. Where the money from his life insurance policy and savings account had been split evenly down the middle between my sister and myself, dad had stipulated in his will that since the place had been home just to me and him, it should be mine to do with as I wanted now that he wasn't there anymore. With the sale of the house having gone through just a couple of days before, and the money now sitting comfortably in my savings account, I'd handed mom a check for all the cycling stuff she'd disbursed, feeling so proud to not be in her debt anymore.

It did not go over well.

I think mom mostly was just miffed that with the money I had gained complete financial independence and would no longer even have to keep up the semblance of being nice to her just in case some disaster struck and I needed her help.

Anyway, by the time Phil's personal chef finally put the turkey in center position on the ridiculously big dining table, I was this close to murder. The only thing that held me back was the fact that it would really screw up my prospective career in law enforcement if I did actually put the carving knife to better use. I was almost jubilant to make it back to my dorm, the day after, to study for my exams.

After the Thanksgiving disaster it was a relief when Emmett's mom called and asked if I wanted to tag along with Rose and her son for Christmas in Forks. The prospect of having a great time with real people–people I loved–instead of some stuck up bunch of idiots I only tolerated because of blood relations, made me actually look forward to the trip. Even mom sounded relieved when I told her about the change of plans, probably looking forward to a repeat performance of our Thanksgiving clusterfuck about as much as I was. _Not_.

Another bonus of spending my Christmas holiday with the McCarty´s was that Em and I were able to get some quite decent practice rounds in. With the weather relatively soft for the time of year–meaning rain instead of snow and ice–the rolling forest roads near my home town proved to be an excellent practice for the bigger climbing work that would be on the menu once the mountains were free of snow again.

It was weird being back though, especially when we drove by my old house and saw that the new owners had already moved in; strange curtains hanging in front of the windows and a foreign car sitting in the driveway. Almost all my childhood memories were somehow attached to that home but it wasn't mine anymore.

And that kind of stung.

All in all I was happy to be home again, even if my only home was the dorms of the University of Washington. My bed and the things that surrounded me were the only anchors to my old life; the life I had before dad got sick, when mom wanted to be a part of my life again and my love life started to swirl into one big hell of a confusing mess.

As for Edward and I, things remained incredibly awkward between the two of us. On the outside, nothing was wrong. He still picked me up to work on my stamina on the outdoor trails or technical training in the indoor race track five times a week, and we still spoke about safe, superficial subjects throughout our workout but on the inside, the night of the party had been the death of the budding friendship that developed between the two of us.

We were both on guard; only speaking when necessary and never venturing from safe topics.

Me: because I was still too hurt and confused by his behavior.

Him: because of whatever reason he may have had.

Sometime after getting back I learned through the grapevine that he'd hooked up with some girl named Chelsea who was in the same study group as him; a little snippet of information that made me feel relieved almost as much as it bugged me, even if I didn't know why.

I mean, it wasn't like _I_ was interested, right?

When school started back up again, me and Emmett took to practicing a lot together, seeing as Cullen was far too busy boning his new girl and Jasper's available hours were a lot different than ours. Alice was nowhere to be seen, always bailing out of our road practice and claiming she preferred practicing alone to joining our small group. And then, she also used work to get out of our first organized amateur road tour in California; a road trip that had been planned from the start and would be our first real indication of where we stood.

Not that anyone, but me, had anything to be worried about, though.

Through my little practice runs with Emmett, I'd found out just how much I was lagging behind all three of the guys. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, really, since both Cullen and Jasper were pretty avid cyclists and Emmett had gotten into U-Dub on a football scholarship, but it still made me feel a little weird sometimes to be the only one in our group still stuck at the beginner's level.

As I stared out of the window of our hired Winnebago, cruising down the I-5 en route to Davis, California, I hoped all my efforts in endurance training would be enough to keep me from making a complete fool out of myself the next day.

The Davis Century.

I was dreading it almost as much as I was excited to go on my first century road tour. Cullen had selected this tour for our first real outing since it was still relatively close and early in the season. An added bonus was that the area surrounding Davis was still relatively flat and suitable for first-timers.

Like me.

Even if the prospect of having to complete a hundred miles on my bike didn't really scream 'beginner' to me, no matter how flat the course was.

"It's gonna be busy," Jasper chuckled, strumming his guitar on the little bench across from me as Emmett and Cullen argued about which route was the fastest one to our final destination.

"Have you done this one before?" I asked, my nerves rising with every mile closer to Davis.

He nodded. "We did this last year as well, though we had a hard time making it out to Davis on time since Cullen had an afternoon class on Friday. I think we arrived somewhere around three in the morning or something and had to be on our bikes three hours later."

I chuckled. "Yeah, I can imagine that would kind of suck." Cullen and I were the only ones out of our group who had class on Friday and both of us had been blessed with morning classes, which meant we had been able to leave around noon. "So the turn-out was good last year?"

"A couple of thousand cyclists at the least," Jasper answered, a dissonant chord ringing out through the camper, drowning out the bickering that was still going on in the front. "It's one of the first organized tours of the year on this side of the country because a lot of places are still too cold or covered in snow. There's gotta be a lot of folks out there who are dying to get on the road again."

"Makes sense," I answered, nodding along to his words. _If thousands of people can get out there and return without any broken bones or even more life-threatening injuries, that means I've gotta be able to make it through too, no?_ "What is it like, though?"

"It's tough," Jasper mused, doing nothing to lessen my anxiety, "but the atmosphere is amazing and I don't think I've ever felt so fulfilled in my life as the moment I crossed that finish line."

"Right," I nodded, my ears only choosing to pick up Jasper's words about hardship. "I think I'd better check up on Cullen and Emmett before they bash each other's skulls in." Jasper chuckled as I moved to get up, the bends and uneven patches in the road making it a lot harder than you would have thought to walk from the little seating area to the front of our little home away from home where Cullen and Emmett were still duking it out over the sound of not one but two GPS systems sticking to the windscreen.

"Would anyone care to explain to me what the fuck is going on here?" I asked over the sound of two bodiless voices blaring directions. I immediately realized I should have done the sane thing and stuck to the back, even if that would have delivered me at the mercy of Jasper's guitar playing. He might have thought he was an amazing blues player but my ears definitely had different ideas about that.

Both guys launched into an in-depth explanation on just about every back road between wherever the hell we were and Davis–_at the same time_–while dissing on the other's opinions, ignoring both GPS systems.

You know, the ones made by professional navigational geniuses. _God help me. _

In spite of theses shenanigans we did manage to make it to Davis in good time, camping out for the remainder of the night in some quiet spot near the starting line as I tried to sleep amidst the screaming of my own nervous inner voice and the snoring of three guys.

It wouldn't have been a huge surprise that the next morning left me tired and grumpy as Cullen woke me up at some ungodly hour to eat breakfast (which had to be eaten well in advance of our race so that our bodies could absorb the energy) and getting ready.

Jasper hadn't been kidding when he told me there would be a lot of people there. It was like Woodstock on bicycles out there; the atmosphere euphoric and a loud cheer rising up when some dude gave the go-ahead to start, our little group morphing into one huge peloton of people chatting amicably like they were at a Sunday picnic on Saturday instead of a one hundred mile death race around California.

We started out slow, the adrenaline and flat surfaces giving me some confidence as I managed to keep up with the group without really overstraining myself but as our surroundings grew more hilly, I started struggling more and more until finally, after about fifty miles, Cullen told Emmett and Jasper to go on ahead, leaving just the two of us.

As much of a relief as it was to know that I wasn't keeping three people from cycling at their own pace–something you read about time and time again as being majorly important and the key to preventing injuries–I was now holding Cullen back; which was about as bad –or maybe even worse.

"You can go ahead, you know," I hissed, being mostly pissed at myself and my legs for not moving faster. "I don't need anyone holding my hand."

"Yes you do," Cullen answered calmly, his breath still as even and smooth as it had been when we began. "What if you fall or you get a flat tire? I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I left you alone and something happened to you. I'm not leaving you behind, Bella, so you can stop now."

I smiled, panting as I tried to keep up with him. "Thanks!"

I was about to call for a 'hallelujah' when Cullen suggested we take another break, both of us munching down on candy bars to restock our energy as we sat; me red-faced and panting for breath as Cullen leisurely leaned backwards and soaked up the March sunshine.

If he hadn't been the bane of my love-life and very much in a relationship at the moment, I wouldn't have been able to keep the drool from dripping out of my mouth at the sight of him; slender legs in tight shorts and a muscular chest just peeking out to say hello from his half-opened jersey. He even managed to make those alien-looking sunglasses look sexy somehow.

_Wait a minute…you don't like Cullen, right?_

I jumped up as fast as if a bee had just stung me on the ass grabbing my bike again as I suggested we head on. There were only a few things I wanted less at that moment than to go on and force my sore ass back on the ridiculously small and hard saddle, but seeing as having dirty thoughts about Cullen was one of them, there was no other option.

Determined not to let him know that any drool had ever entered my mouth at the sight of him, I tried to go on as if nothing had happened, asking questions about his course load and answered similarly superficial questions about mine as my legs kept on protesting against the herculean task demanded of them and more and more other participants overtook us.

"How's working out with Emmett going so far?" he asked after we exhausted all university subject matter.

"It's good," I nodded, clenching my teeth as I managed to plow over another little incline. "Though he's not on my case as much as you."

He chuckled, easily keeping up with me. "You're saying that like it's a _bad_ thing."

"It _is_ when it's making me feel like a complete idiot right now," I muttered dejectedly, my voice low but apparently still loud enough to be heard by him. I was tired, that much was true, but my fatigue had nothing on the acute sense of failure that had come over me somewhere around the sixty mile mark. I was crazy to think that I could actually do this; to think that a couch potato like me could get ready to climb a fucking Alp in a year's time.

"Hey." Cullen's voice was commanding, forcing me to look at him even though he had no means to _make_ me do so. Except for his voice. "You're not an idiot and you're not failing at anything, Bella!" His voice picked up more strength as he went on. "I don't think I've seen anyone make as much progress as you have in such a short amount of time. So what if you can't keep up with guys who've been into sports all their life? So what if you need an extra break or two to make it through the course? You're doing it, Bella. In about ten more miles you will have actually made it through a hundred mile cycling tour without giving up, and as someone who's had a little hand in your training, I can say that I couldn't be prouder."

His words made the floodgates slam open, hot tears falling onto my bike gloves as I dutifully kept on going. "I…thank you," I blubbered, wiping the snot away with the back of my glove, no longer caring about the grossness of bodily fluids.

"And if you want to resume our early morning practices, I'd be more than happy to," he went on, his smile letting me know that he really meant what he said. "In fact, I really kind of want you to."

"Won't your girlfriend mind?" I asked, my voice still shaky with emotion

He shrugged. "It's just exercise, right? What could she have against it?" It didn't escape my notice, though, how he'd started to cringe at my mentioning Chelsea and quickly changed the subject again after he'd answered my question.

We made it to the finish line at 3:06PM exactly, my euphoria at realizing I'd really made it reaching heights that would normally only be attainable to those sportsmen and women earning an Olympic Gold Medal.

To me, this was just silver, though. The gold was yet to come. But it was a start.

We stayed for the after party; the atmosphere in our little camp of cycling enthusiasts keeping my sense of achievement alive as I chatted with some of the guys who'd actually made it to the top of 'my' Alp under the pleasure of beer and ribs and earned some pretty valuable advice on top of it.

From time to time, my eyes wandered back to Cullen only to find his already on me; the sensation of being watched making me feel weird and comforted at the same time as I relished in this strange new understanding that had come into existence between us, somewhere between the eighty and ninety mile mark.

That night, I had no trouble sleeping at all–even though the three guys bunking down with me were still snoring up a storm.

* * *

_**Thoughts?**_


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya! **_

* * *

**10. Test**

Cullen and Chelsea broke up two days after we got back from Davis.

Campus (or at least the female population) was awash with gossip about who broke up with whom, and which lucky bitch would be able to snatch up the golden boy since he was fair game again. Instead of making that easier between the two of us, I now felt twice as awkward being around him since I was kind of afraid I was somehow involved in his breakup. _Petty and selfish, I know, but it all went down just too soon after our talk for me to now be worried. _

It didn't take Cullen long to pick up on my weirdness, though maybe me acting like some psycho had something to do with it as well. "So are you going to treat me like a grownup and tell me what the fuck is wrong with you or are you _that_ determined on keeping me guessing?" he asked as we stretched after another run along the tracks–no stops this time.

I cringed, not really feeling like opening up and laying my doubts on the table for him to poke fun at. "It's just girl stuff," I tried to deflect, "you wouldn't understand."

"Try me," he insisted, much to my dismay. "After all: I'm training to be an anthropologist so trying to interpret and understand the unintelligible is kind of part of how I want to earn my money."

"You broke up with Chelsea," I blurted without any introduction or explanation_. Idiot!_

"Yep," he nodded, not seeming that put out about the whole breakup thing; or the fact that his running buddy had apparently lost most normal brain function. "So?"

"I just…" I fidgeted, taking an inordinate amount of time to towel away some of the sweat from my face and neck as I thought about a good way to explain myself. Not that there was. "Did our conversation in California have anything to do with it?"

Much to my shock, he nodded. "Kind of."

_No. Oh, no! _

_Not the answer I want to hear. Abort mission! _

_Abort! _

_Abort! Abort!_

A crueler version of me might have relished in the fact that at least I was catching up in the race to determine who was able to mess with the other's love life the most. But I wasn't. Mostly, I just felt horrible. "Kind of?" I squeaked, hiding my face behind the towel as utter mortification set in.

"I was starting to have second thoughts anyway," he shrugged, stretching his calf muscles. "She was getting a little too demanding; constantly nagging at me to give up training so that I could spend more time with her when we'd been together for all but...what? Three weeks?"

I nodded, even though I didn't have a clue about what he was saying. A thing like that had never happened to me, though there was a time when I broke up with a boyfriend when he wanted me to go out and jog with him at six in the morning _every_ morning and kept on nagging me about heart disease and congested arteries to get me to cave.

"When I told her I was starting my early morning workouts back up with you, she completely flipped out on me–even went as far as to accuse me of cheating with you behind her back, can you believe it?" he went on, grinning as if I was some kind of hideous ogre and cheating with me would have been just about the last thing on my mind.

"Yeah!" I snorted, faking it like Lindsey Lohan tried to play innocent. "Like that's ever going to happen!"

"I know, right?" he guffawed. "Anyway, that's when I had enough and broke it off with her. So if you're feeling guilty or something for whatever reason, _don't_–it was a long time coming and I haven't regretted it for a second."

"Okay," I muttered, getting into the passenger seat of his car, the music blasting from his stereo making all conversation superfluous.

I still felt weird, though, even though he talked.

It wasn't like I was falling for Cullen or anything–jeez, even the thought alone was enough to make me feel slightly nauseous!–but still, I had to admit that hearing him say he didn't even think about me like _that_, did kinda sting.

April rolled around with an announcement from Alice that, instead of cycling up the Alp like the rest of us, she had now decided to walk to the top. Being who she was, my sister lacked the balls to actually tell us to our faces so she sent her boyfriend over to give us the news–Jasper's face as he made the announcement clearly reading that he was about as fed up with her as the rest of us.

Mom, of course, all thought it was splendid. If she was to be believed, it would be a much better way to honor my dad–my dad, who'd been a fan of competitive road cycling for most of his life and never actually cared for walking if there wasn't the promise of shooting game at the end of said walk. In all of this she didn't seem to care that Alice's decision meant she'd just wasted more than a thousand bucks on a bicycle and cycling gear Alice was never going to use.

Her announcement didn't really come as a surprise to us anymore, seeing as she'd stopped attending our weekly Saturday morning group practice sessions even before Christmas had rolled around, so instead of moping (like she probably hoped we'd do) we just shrugged and went on planning our first big venture into the mountains.

To get us started, Cullen had suggested the Hurricane Ridge Road, near Port Angeles in the Olympic mountains; an 18 mile climb over about fifteen hundred altimeters, which meant that it was a longer climb than the Alp but also slightly easier.

"A perfect way to start off," Cullen had said. But as I stood in the parking lot of the Olympic National Park Visitor's Center, 'perfection' wasn't the word that sprung to mind.

Madness was more like it.

"It looks awfully high from down here," I squeaked, my courage sinking way beyond sea level as my eyes followed the trees upwards to where the mountain met the sky. "Are you sure this can be done?"

"Don't worry, Bella," Cullen chuckled paternally. "I've climbed this road at least a dozen times every year since we moved out to Seattle. It's a good climb."

I would never have used the word 'good' in a sentence that implied cycling up a damn mountain but who was I to argue, right? "If you say so," I muttered, shifting my bike between my legs as I watched Emmett make figure eights in the parking lot, looking as eager as a beaver.

"I'm set!" Jasper yelled, finally mounting his bike after a little problem with his derailleur, the tempo with which he stormed passed me one I could never even hope to achieve on flat surfaces, let alone uphill.

Or up-mountain.

"You have your phone, right?" Cullen asked for what may have very well been the hundredth time since we set off from Seattle earlier that morning.

I nodded, patting one of the little pockets on the back of my jersey. "And I have my spare tires and toolkit in the little bag underneath my saddle."

"Good." Cullen smiled, his foot pushing off as he clicked his feet into his pedals. "Now don't be a hero. If anything's wrong, call me. Okay?"

"Okay." I pursed my lips, trying to summon what courage I had as I followed the guys out of the parking lot, fidgeting with my toe-clips as I tried to click my shoes into my pedals. _Yes, I've finally joined the grown-up world and had them installed. _

I follow the group, sticking to the last wheel–Cullen's wheel–on the flatter surfaces but as soon as the road really started to climb, I knew I had to let go and find my own rhythm, something Cullen and I had discussed at length during the practice sessions leading up to this challenge.

"See you back at the parking lot!" Cullen grinned, looking backward as he stepped on his pedals, his bike veering forward as he shot past Jasper and Emmett until he was nothing more than a little blip on the horizon.

"Show off!" I grumbled, already starting to pant a little as my legs struggled to keep up with the rhythm that had seemed so easy at the foot of the climb.

In our buildup to this day, he had brought up some of the things I'd said in California about feeling guilty for holding him back since both of us knew a similar thing was going to happen if he stuck by my side today.

I didn't want that, especially not since I'd read online that not being able to climb at your own pace increased the risk of injuries. For a professional cyclist that was all fine and dandy since they'd learned how to deal with 'cycling with the handbrake on' and basically fend off that risk but us amateurs? Yeah, I had no desire to see Cullen or anyone else from our group, unable to go on because they had to stick with the little loser.

Smiling, though not without a slight undercurrent of panic, I noticed I was completely alone now; Jasper and Emmett both slipping from view as I plowed on along the Heart of the Ridge Road until it went over in the famous Hurricane Ridge Climb.

Sticking to the plan, I stopped after I'd done about two miles, grabbing one of my water bottles for a long sip to replenish what I'd already sweated out and munching down on a few miniature Mars bars–_if there's anything I like about this cycling thing, it's that gratuitous eating of candy bars…yum!_–, as I admired the view which was starting to get better and more breathtaking with every yard I climbed.

Getting back on my bike, the clicking of my shoes as they popped back into their toe clips was just about the only sound that could be heard, the silence, only broken by the soft rippling of a little mountain stream somewhere nearby, almost cerebral, especially when combined with the roughness of nature surrounding the tarmac at both sides. It would have made me feel bad for panting so loudly and disturbing the peace if I wasn't so busy trying to keep myself alive since my lungs increasingly started to feel like they were on fire.

Even though I was completely alone, I never felt lonely; the sounds of the forest and my own fierce concentration on what I was doing, keeping my mind completely busy but at the same time, allowed me to slip into some weird zen-like state.

Until, of course, I was shocked out of my uphill-meditation by Cullen, crashing around the bend at a breakneck speed, his voice trailing off into something inaudible as he shot past me with what looked like complete and utter contempt for death and all the risks that came with descending a mountain on a little scrap of aluminum that would do nothing to protect you if you missed a bend or slipped on a branch or something else on the road.

Road rash would be the least of your problems.

Imminent death was more likely.

Of course, Cullen's surprise appearance kicked me out of my 'zen' and before I knew it (and completely without consent) my legs had stopped peddling. Without any forward movement, my bike soon started to come to a standstill against the sloping road, my feet fidgeting in their toe clips to get loose (and me, of course, forgetting the fluid foot-move that would actually make that happen) as I found myself going sideways in a way you only see in cartoons until my knee bumped gently against the asphalt road.

_What the hell just happened?_

I frowned, trying to scratch my head only to have my fingers get stuck in my helmet , my mind only now starting to realize that I'd just fallen off my bike; the one thing I'd been so afraid of all along.

"That wasn't so bad," I muttered, now finally freeing my feet from the pedals as I got up, dusted myself off, yanked my bike back up and got back on; my whole body crunching against the strain of getting the bike to move forward again on the steep passage I'd been trying to navigate.

The rest of the climb happened without further incident, my concentration soon returning as I moved my feet around to the rhythm of my labored breaths; the vegetation changing and thinning as I got nearer to the top until, suddenly, I was there.

My first mountain.

I climbed it!

I made it!

Squeeeeeeeee!

I looked around me, my shaky fingers prying the jacket from one of my little back pockets to protect me from the cold since up here it was over twenty degrees cooler than it was down in the valley. My eyes never pitched in to help, though, so transfixed were they on the magnificence of the amazing views of the Olympic Mountains and the sea, glistening far away.

A small, satisfied sigh left my chest as I pried my phone from the pocket of my jersey and snapped a few pictures of the view from the top. If this was what biking up a mountain was like, then perhaps it wasn't so bad after all.

* * *

_**Thoughts?**_


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya! **_

* * *

**11. Done**

The trouble with cycling up a mountain is that you have to go down again.

That was the one thing I had been dreading the most about this whole undertaking and the aspect about my ever-approaching trek to the Alps which filled me with the most fear. I mean…hairpin-bends. They don't look like they're supposed to be navigated by any vehicle, let alone a bike at a fast enough pace to make your eyes tear up.

The boys, of course, had laughed all my worries away; puffing out their chests in some sort of strange ritual that seemed to have come directly from the apes as they boasted about the speeds they were going to achieve and the buzz they would get out of zooming down the mountain.

Damned adrenaline junkies!

I slowly sipped on my bottle of energy drink, munching on yet another candy bar as I caught my breath again and tried to gather the courage to start my descent.

And tried.

And tried again.

And tried once more.

In the end, only the cold air starting to chill me to the bone could get me to move, my hands started to turn blue from the much cooler temperatures at 1500 ft. above where we began that morning. "You've gotta go down again, Bella," I muttered to myself. "The boys are just going to shit themselves if you call them now to come pick you up in the car."

Making sure my helmet straps were secure and my warm jacket zipped shut, I finally clicked my shoes back into the pedals, my hands already clenching the brakes in a death grip as I slowly pushed my bike forward, letting it pick up speed naturally as I turned it back down the road I'd come up on.

Almost as soon as I'd left the small parking lot at the end of the climb, I could feel gravity starting to take over, my bike picking up more and more speed along the road while my feet sat idle on the pedals, the wind blowing through my hair and zooming past my skin as, for a moment, I felt as free as the birds in the sky.

It was …exhilarating. Or it would have been, if not for the hairpin bend coming up on the horizon.

Remembering what Cullen had told me about breaking at high speed, I gently squeezed my brakes in advance, diminishing my speed slowly to keep in control of the bike and not have it swerve and buckle underneath me, the speedometer still reading a terrifying twenty miles per hour but the numbers slowly dwindling until I managed to steer my trusty bike around the bend at a safe four mile speed.

_One down. _

_More to go. _

As I went through the same process over and over again–picking up speed, slowing down and praying for mercy as my tires crunched through the narrow turns and angles of the road–my fingers started to cramp from holding the brakes in a vise-like grip. Though the pain grew with every mile until my hands started to tremble, it wasn't like I could let go of the breaks so I just clenched my teeth together and pushed through it, trying to blink against the tears caused by the strong wind lapping against my eyes as I tried not to wet myself with utter fear.

How anyone could actually enjoy this was something I'd never understand.

As long as it had taken me to climb up–nearly three hours to be exact–it took me all of forty minutes to spot the familiar parking lot coming back into view, my chest releasing a breath it had been holding for as long as it had taken me to get back down as my bike started to naturally slow down again, my fingers stiff as they relaxed.

I _made it!_

_I managed a bona fide climb _and_ came back down again without killing myself!_

_Does this mean I can actually do this shit?_

_Wooooooohoooooo!_

I grinned all the way through the final leg of my descend; the incline now so slight that even I could afford to let loose a little and enjoy the sun on my face and the sound of birds singing in the trees. And three guys laying in the grass near the parking lot eating chocolate chip cookies, lounging around like they hadn't really done much of anything that day while I probably looked like some weird crossing between a mineworker and a ghost.

"Hey you!" Emmett grinned, popping another cookie into his mouth as he lounged back, his sunglasses perched on the tip of his nose. He was the only one who hadn't changed out of his cycling gear and I shuddered at the sight of far too tight pants on him, even though the padding prevented the whole thing from becoming too graphic. And thank God for that! _I really do not need to know anything about the size of Emmett's pork sword, thank you very much!_

"Hey yourself!" I answered jubilantly, my muscles all relaxing with relief as I freed my feet (making sure to do that before I stopped this time) and got off my bike. "And thanks for waiting for me until you dug into the cookies!"

"We left you some," Emmett shrugged, though he looked slightly guilty as he passed the container to me.

"Yeah," I grumbled. "All of two cookies when I know damn well your mom sent a whole container along. I'm going to tell on you the next time I see her."

Emmett actually paled a little, clutching the lid of the container to his chest as if it would protect him from the ire of Mama McCarty. "You wouldn't!"

"Try me," I challenged him, making sure to secure the cookies before anyone else's grubby hands could snatch them away. I earned those cookies fair and square, risking my life in cycling down a bloody mountain and all.

"So how was it?" Cullen lowered his Ray-Bans as he peeked at me from above the rims. I had to admit he looked good in old jeans that sat low on his hips and a worn band t-shirt on top of it did funny and very confusing things to me.

"It was good," I mumbled, talking around my last cookie as I dug into the backseat of the car to get my towel and a change of clothes. "Slow, but good."

"Slow and steady wins the race," Jasper chimed in, lounging against the back tire of Emmett's Jeep.

"Yeah, but I'm not very likely to win a race going up against you guys, am I?" I joked back, squeezing the sweat out of my hair as best as I could, while mentally calculating how long it would be until I could get back to my bathroom. "I'll just go change and then we can go, okay?"

The boys had already packed up again when I got back, an acute sense of grief striking me as Cullen and I followed Emmett as he tore out of the parking lot, my eyes following Hurricane Ridge Road upwards until it disappeared from sight.

I missed my dad.

So much.

Growing up around these parts, he would've loved to have been a part of this day, even if it was just from the sidelines cheering us on as we went up and listening to our stories as we came down again. I could just see him waiting in that parking lot; his lazy ass parked in a lawn chair and his eyes glistening with excitement.

_Oh, daddy_.

Getting back to Seattle was the kickoff for the most grueling couple of weeks in my life. Between prepping for my finals on top of training, my days consisted of training, work, class, eating, more class or studying, more training, more eating, a final study session and then bedtime.

No fun for Bella.

Unless anyone would count stuffing pages and pages of criminal facts and figures into your head or cycling down some godforsaken road until your legs felt like they were two miles away from jumping ship and finding some lazy girl to hang out with fun?

I didn't.

And what's more; the lack in my social life was really starting to get to me, almost to the point where I became ecstatic when I could manage to squeeze in a short movie or an hour or two with some music and a good book. I'd all but given up beer too, after Cullen's incessant lectures on the influence of alcohol on your body and, after another lecture on junk food, I had his damn voice ringing in my ear every time I wanted to eat a snack. Apparently Cullen wasn't just a cockblocker; he was also a more efficient diet guru than any of those other schmucks out there.

Add that on top of my still non-existent love life and it was no wonder why I ended up walking around with a sour face half the time. Which, of course, didn't really help with the love life either.

Not even the Tour the France managed to cheer me up, even if it was the Centennial edition; packed with breathtaking climbs, exciting chases and heartwarmingly little mention of the dreaded D-word. It seemed like the peloton had really turned a new leaf and decided to come out fighting for the sport we all loved so much.

For me, though, it had been forever changed but not so much because of the doping affairs of the past. It was because dad was no longer with me, his voice competing with mine as we cheered on our heroes. Not even a double climb of Alpe d'Huez could change that, though it did make me sit up, take notes and wet myself with fear at the prospect that in a few weeks it would be me up there.

And then I went back to studying.

"What's with the face?" Cullen joked as I met up with him for what would be our last training session before we'd head out to France. "I'd have thought you'd be jumping for joy since you had your last exam today."

"I'm fed up with all of this!" I growled, wishing this cycling gear wasn't so expensive so that I could kick it because God knew I really needed to break something at that moment. "Any other year I would have spent tonight getting insanely drunk, have a couple of laughs and dances and end up getting plowed by some guy I had my eye on for most of the year. Just like most of my classmates."

Cullen cringed at the prospect, though he must have done his fair bit of plowing and drinking in the past, if the gossip mill was to be believed. "Well, look at it like this," he recovered, fastening his helmet on top of his head. "At least tomorrow you won't wake up with the mother of all hangovers and besides…I bet this sure beats last year's end of term."

And just like that, he reminded me of why I was doing all of this, a feeling of intense shame and self-hate at my selfish, superficial whining taking hold of me as I remembered what dad had looked like around this time.

"It's just…" And then it all came out; my ongoing and unaddressed grief over my father's death, my anger with my mom and Alice for always wanting to change me and, most of all, my fear that no matter how hard I worked in life, I would never be good enough.

I was never going to make it to the top.

"Don't doubt yourself, Bella." The sincerity in his voice almost made me fall of my bike, my leg pace slowing slightly as I tried to digest his words. "Just look at you: you went from having no stamina to speak of to having the kind of endurance that will get you up that mountain all while keeping a part-time job and juggling a course load that would be a challenge even without the goal you've set yourself on top it. If anything, I'm in awe of your determination and persistence, but most of all, of your devotion to your dad." He paused, taking a few breaths. "If your mom and Alice don't see that then fuck them! Your friends believe in you."

"Okay," I answered dumbly, feeling like an idiot for not coming up with something more eloquent to say to such amazing words.

"You can do this," Cullen insisted again, his feet sitting idle as we slowed down, already having reached the parking lot close to my dorm again. _Apparently times flies when you're freaking out_. "You just have to believe in yourself."

Hearing him say the words, it sounded so simple but in reality it was much easier said than done.

I would try, though.

For dad.

* * *

_**Thoughts?**_


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya! **_

* * *

**12. There**

"I'm going to miss you so much!" I rolled my eyes as my mom said her tearful goodbye to Alice, who just went it with the stoicism of someone who's gotten used to freaky shit like that over the years. "I still don't see why Phil couldn't take a couple of days off. I would have loved to have gone with you!"

_Because God knows you and Phil are joined at the hip so it's impossible to leave his side_, I grumped in my mind. Looking at her now, it was a small miracle she hadn't dragged that spineless tool of a husband of hers along when she came to take care of dad.

"Your nerves won't hold up watching me go up that mountain, remember Mom?" Alice patiently reminded her. I'd have put money on this being about the two hundredth time she had probably said those words. _But thank God for Mom and her sensitive nerves! It's bad enough to be locked in close quarters with Alice for three weeks, let alone have her tag along for the ride._

I think I would have seriously considered throwing in the towel if she had butted in on our trip.

"I love you so much, Ally bun!" my mom cooed, her sugary sweetness making the chunks of vomit rise in my throat. "Please, please come back safely, and Jasper…" Poor Jasper looked like a deer caught in headlights as she pulled him into what became a group hug. "Take good care of my darling little, baby girl."

I couldn't hear his response, but whatever Jasper said must have been reassuring enough for my mom to let him go, his whole appearance looking rather rumpled as he scooted as far away as he could get without seeming impolite.

"I think that's everything," I announced as Emmett dragged the last piece of luggage onto the belt, turning my attention away from the nauseating scene behind me and back to the poor attendant who had to deal with checking in all our junk.

Apparently traveling to France with enough clothes and sunscreen to last you three weeks on top of four bikes and tons of cycling gear wasn't as easy as it seemed. In fact, I suspected planning operation Desert Storm wouldn't have taking anywhere this long.

Thankfully, though, with Alice flaking out on the cycling, I felt no remorse in letting her do all the tedious shit like getting in touch with airlines and travel agents, only involving myself by packing my bags and dissembling my bike so that it fit into the swanky looking bike case.

Though in truth, I kind of let Cullen do most of that. I was a girl, after all, and what the hell do girls know about bike mechanics? Truth was, I could have probably done it myself, seeing at it wasn't exactly rocket science or anything, but I just enjoyed watching him work for some strange reason.

When I turned around after making sure everything and everyone was checked in and good to go, I almost bumped into my mom, who was hovering in my periphery with that ever-present scowl on her face that always seemed to appear whenever she had to deal with me.

"Bella," she spoke, saying my name like I'd already done something to offend her. Probably breathe.

Over the years I'd kind of become unaffected to it, mostly because I'd had my dad who really did love me just the way I was. I knew she had never agreed with my choices or my dad's acceptance of them, but I would have been lying of it didn't still hurt to see her so plainly reject me. No child could ever grow that unaffected by the approval or disapproval of their parents. Sighing I acknowledged her, knowing that ignoring her would only make it worse. "Mother."

"Good luck," she spat, a small smile curving around her lips as she was obviously pleased at having done her duty (in her eyes at least) before she turned away and walked out of the airport–but not without one last fierce hug for Alice.

"Bitch!" Emmett muttered beside me, his arm wrapping around my shoulder as if to make up for all the love my mom withheld from me. "Don't let her get to you, Bella. She's the one missing out, not you."

"Thanks, Em." I somehow managed to conjure a smile onto my face as I looked up at him; my big brother in all but DNA.

"Now let's go find our plane," he shouted, the sound coming out almost like some sort of _Game of Thrones_-style battle cry. "We've got a big-ass mountain to tackle!"

I grinned, disregarding the looks we were getting from other passengers and the death glare my sister was sending us for making a spectacle out of ourselves as we bumped fists before I hopped on his back, his strong arms carrying me all the way to customs, a giggling Rose and a weird looking Cullen following hot on our heels with a grumpy Alice complaining to Jasper about being stuck with a bunch of idiots.

As far as I was concerned there was only one idiot joining us on the trip.

And it sure as hell wasn't me.

As excited as I had been about my first trans-Atlantic flight, it soon turned out that it wasn't quite as exciting as I'd cracked it up to be. After all, how many hours can you really sit still before your ass goes numb, the sound of Emmett snoring next to you, and with Alice yapping on in front of you will make you want to kill someone?

Two, appeared to be the answer, which meant that I only had about three and a half hours to go until we touched down in New York for our first stop along the way.

The only distraction came in the form of Cullen, pulling me from the ledge when I was just about ready to pull the shoelaces from my shoes and strangle my sister as she launched into a detailed account of how to die fabrics while Jasper listened on with the patience of a saint, even going as far as to feign interest. _How he does it, I don't know but the man deserves an award for sticking it out with her. That or a swift kick to the balls for being so stupid. _

"So who's your all-time favorite cyclist?" A slight whiff of spicy cologne wafted through as Cullen leaned forward in his seat right behind me, his voice right by my ear.

"Difficult question," I sighed, rubbing my hands over my face to drive away the tiredness, "seeing as so many of them fell from grace lately."

"Act like it didn't happen," Cullen encouraged, "like all of the doping and everything we know now about how they fooled us and stole our dreams is all just one hell of a nightmare."

"Hmm," I mused, tapping my lip. "It's still difficult but I think I have to go with Van Impe since he's not just a great cyclist but a gentleman too. More recently I really like the way Contador and Valverde practice their sport, even in spite of the rumors and affairs surrounding them."

"I see what you mean about Contador and Valverde," Cullen nodded along. "I would never have expected you to say Van Impe, though."

"No?" I chuckled, knowing he would have probably pegged me to come up with some more flashy name like Bahamontes, Lemond or maybe even Armstrong. "Me and my dad never liked cyclists who seemed to be competing out of spite or hatred. I want to see someone who's in it for the love and the joy of cycling and who's competitive but still effusing the spirit of the peloton, if you know what I mean."

I could hear him nod against the fabric of my seat, the pride in his voice as he answered making my heart soar for some strange reason. "I know exactly what you mean."

We spent most of the flight from New York to London quizzing each other on cycling trivia; me often surprising Cullen with what I knew and him proving that he wasn't just a pretty face but knew a lot about the sport he practiced.

Time seemed to fly, though I wasn't quite sure whether that was just because I was having fun or whether or not both Alice and Emmett sitting a little further away had something to do with it.

When Cullen nudged me awake in Heathrow Airport to catch our connecting flight to Lyon, my body still felt the strain of having sat on my ass for almost seven hours, my butt protesting vehemently as I parked it back into another airplane seat for the last leg of our journey.

We arrived in Lyon at eleven in the morning after having been on our way for twenty-seven long hours, my body feeling broken as we collected our luggage and headed over to the rental company to pick up the two vans we'd hired for our stay in France.

From there, we just had a fabulous hour and a half trip to go, most of which through the foothills of the Alps and the actual mountain themselves.

"I don't envy you guys," Rose chuckled, her eyes following a huge mass of stone as it rose from the ground. "There's still snow up there."

"That's what we have our jackets and leg warmers for, babe," Emmett answered good-naturedly, steering us down the A48.

"Yeah, well, if you don't mind, I'll stick to our cozy little cottage in the warm, sunny valley," Rose insisted, looking almost disturbed as her eyes went back to the peak of the mountain we were just passing. "I have to admit it, though. It's beautiful up here."

"Just wait until we get to Bourg d'Oissans," Cullen chimed in. "I spent a couple of days camping there when I did the Marmotte and it's amazing."

"You did what?" Rose turned around again, looking at Cullen like he was crazy.

"The Marmotte," I explained. "It's a one day amateur cycling event that covers some of the most challenging mountains in the Alps." I turned towards Cullen with a new sort of respect. After all, covering four Alps (three of which ranking 'hors categorie'–the highest and most challenging category in the bunch) spanning 174k wasn't something you just did. The Marmotte was up there with some of the most challenging stages in the Tour. "You never told me you did that."

He smirked, averting his eyes as he glanced out the window. "I didn't finish." The tone of his voice definitely hinted at there being a story behind those words–one that still hurt.

"What happened?" In that moment, no matter what had happened between us and how much of my residual anger with him was still alive, I really felt sorry for him.

"I wasn't ready." He shrugged, trying to play it down even when it was plain as day to see that he was still affected by it. "I knew it–hell, _everyone_ knew it–but I was too stubborn to give up. Condition-wise I could have made it but actually completing a race like that isn't about physical fitness and…and I started to struggle on the Télégraphe and finally had to give up halfway through my climb of the Galibier. I never even made it to Alpe d'Huez."

"Is that why you wanted to come along?" I asked, finally understanding his motivation a little bit better.

He nodded. "It's my second chance at making it to the top of the one mountain out of all four that I wanted to climb the most."

I knew what he meant. I might never have experienced what he did, but I knew damn well about the single minded determination to climb that fucking mountain even if it killed you. But preferably not, of course.

"I'm glad you came," I muttered, my eyes not meeting his as a laden silence settled over the backseat, only broken by Emmett's announcement that we'd arrived as the town of Le Bourg d'Oissans came into view, nestled right at the base of my favorite mountain in the entire world.

Looking at it through the window of the car–and leaning all over Cullen in my quest to get the best view of it–it didn't seem so imposing; just a friendly high peak, covered in green trees and looking just like every other mountain I'd seen in my life.

All of that changed, though, as we made it to our little cottage, situated right at the start of the road that would wind its way to the summit of the mountain and the town of l'Alpe d'Huez. The minute I stepped out of the car, something really weird seemed to happen: either the mountain was growing or I was shrinking.

Either way: it seemed a whole lot more imposing from this vantage point.

For weeks now I'd been training for what was about to happen tomorrow; I'd worked on my stamina, followed Google earth all the way up the winding road to the summit and watched all the Tour de France stages involving this damn mountain until I was blue in the face.

But standing right in front of it there was only one thing going through my mind, except maybe for 'run while you still can'.

"Damn, that thing is high!"

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_**Thoughts?**_


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya! **_

* * *

_**This week marks the anniversary of my own climb of Alpe d'Huez. I did that, last year, as part of a huge Dutch charity which raises money for cancer and wrote the original oneshot both to raise a bit more (it was part of the Fandom LLS compilation) and to process my own experience. It means that this week, to celebrate the anniversary, you get the two chapters that come closest to me on the days that I felt much of the feelings described in this chapter (unfortunately apart from the bits that concern Bella's relationship with Edward). **_

_**Okay, enough talk. On with it. **_

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**13. Think**

"Getting cold feet, Swan?" Cullen chuckled next to me, making me want to smack him right in his pretty face. Of course he and his amazing, Marmotte-worthy stamina would have nothing to fear. He only had to worry about his time as he made it up that mountain tomorrow while I was seriously concerned whether or not I'd make it up there at all.

"See the road?" he asked, leaning halfway over me as he pointed out a school bus winding its way up the mountain. "That's the one we'll be taking tomorrow."

I swallowed, my courage sinking like the Titanic as my eyes suddenly seemed transfixed on that damn school bus. "It's very…high."

"Losing your nerve?" he taunted, chuckling and seemingly relaxed beside me.

"Fuck off," I snapped, both hating the way he taunted me and the fact that he was succeeding in getting a rise out of me. "Go find some poor, unsuspecting French girl to hump and leave me alone, will ya? I have a mountain to prep for."

There was something in his eyes that might be disappointment as he suffered the blow I'd just doled out. Only after a second or so–a very confusing second in which I tried to put my finger on what exactly what I was seeing in his eyes and why that made me feel all funny inside–he shrugged it off. "Well, I'm off to the cottage again to do a final checkup on my bike. You can drop yours off when you're done exploring."

And just like that he was off, leaving me with the rest of the team. All confused.

"I'm so excited!" Alice, who had been standing off to the side, schmoozing with Jasper squealed in my ear. "I almost can't wait until tomorrow. I want to do it now." Patience had never been my sister's strong suit. Nor was temperance. Or genuinely 'being nice'.

"Well, I can!" I snorted, not seeing anything about the grey beast that rose up in front of me that made me impatient for the climb; except maybe for the fact that it would mean the end of my torturous training.

Or the fact that I would finally be fulfilling my promise to my dad. I'd worked so hard for it–for _him_. Yeah, that was the one thing I was looking forward to. Making him proud.

Still, as I looked up to where the school bus had just disappeared behind the vast grey and green of the mountain, I was awfully tempted to just say 'fuck it' and take the lift that operated from a village nearby to the top.

Not that I would, though. "I must be nuts," I muttered, my hands shaking as I took a few steps towards the start of the climb, already feeling the strain of walking uphill when I knew that the real challenge only began around the bend, where the road shot upwards in its maximum incline percentage of just over ten percent.

Or utter madness in normal speak.

"Nah, Calamity Jane, you're just the kind of good kid who'll be giving your old man one hell of a laugh tomorrow as he watches you from above," Emmett pulling up next to me, chuckled. When coming face to face with the mountain, he and Jasper hadn't been able to contain themselves and grabbed their bikes to 'test the waters'. I hadn't felt the slightest urge to join them. "Wanna head back to the cottage? Rosie will be firing up the barbecue soon."

I nodded, though I did reach out to knock him upside the head, snickering when he looked at me all hurt and surprised. "Don't call me Calamity Jane, Bigfoot! You know I don't like it."

He narrowed his eyes, hating his childhood nickname almost as much as I did mine. It stemmed from a time when Emmett's feet had already started to take an advance on the growth spurt the rest of him would go through, making him look like he was walking around on flippers until his body finally caught up with his feet. His only saving grace back in those days was that even before puberty, he'd already been a good foot and a half taller than the rest of the boys in our group, which stopped most of them from getting up to any funny business.

Most, except maybe for Mike Newton.

Following Emmett, I doubled back to the vacation cottage we'd rented, dropping my bike with Cullen and Jasper who were doing a final check up on all the equipment; making sure there weren't any small stones caught in the rubber of the frighteningly thin tires, that the chain was well-oiled and shifting smoothly over the cranks and cogset and that the brakes, most importantly, would hold the enormous force bearing down on them in the descent. _Yeah, that might be something that could come in handy. _

Now all I had to do was wait for tomorrow to come. I sighed, casting one final glance at the road, where the fading paint of this year's Tour de France was still faintly visible on the tarmac, the familiar names making me feel that same mixture of emotions that had been ever-present throughout my preparation.

Afraid, because this wasn't _anything_ I was planning to do, this was _something. _

Something huge!

I'd seen enough of the mountain over the years to know that even some of the pro's had a hard time getting to its top. Who was I to think I could do it? Still, in spite of my fear I had to admit I felt privileged because tomorrow I would be going where so many of the greats had gone before me; this was a mountain steeped in history and you could feel it, even from where we were staying about a quarter mile from the start of the climb. The air had some kind of 'zing' to it that made you feel strange excited, even when you were scared to death.

Like me.

And finally I was sad because dad wasn't there to live this experience with me. Even if he would never have made it to the top with the way he'd been eating, drinking, smoking and pretty much not exercising for most of his life, he would have loved being there, scooping up the history and merging our memories with reality.

_I'm doing this for you, Dad. For both of us. _

_I still miss you. So much. _

Rose only had to take one look at me when I got in to pour me a bucket-sized glass of red wine and silently hand it to me as Alice, meanwhile, droned on about all sorts of stuff no one wanted to know. I sipped my wine, pretending to listen and making the effort to nod when needed as my thoughts went miles away.

"You're drinking alcohol," Cullen's voice had that same accusing tone it always had when he caught me doing something I shouldn't be doing when training for the Alpe d'Huez. "Remember what I told you about that?"

"Believe me, she needs it," Rose came to my defense, smiling my way as Emmett dove into the fridge and emerged triumphant with a bottle of Heineken, not hesitating for a single second before screwing the cap off and putting the bottle to his mouth.

Cullen let out a deep sigh, shaking his head, though he did accept the bottle Emmett offered him. "I guess if everyone else is doing it…"

"I never took you for a sheep," I chuckled; glad the arrival of the boys was pulling me out of my gloomy thoughts.

His left brow arched as he looked at me, his lips folding around the mouth of the bottle as he took a sip before talking. "A sheep?"

"You know." I shrugged. "Someone who blindly follows the masses."

"I'm not," he countered. "It's just that usually when I'm up here we don't really drink since it affects our performance, and no one wants to be the last one to reach the top."

"You know I don't care about that," I shrugged, knowing realistically that there was no way anyone would go slower than I would tomorrow. I think even the snails on the road would have an easy job keeping pace with me. "It's getting to the top that matters to me. Not the time in which I do it or being there first."

"And you will, you know that," he insisted, just like he'd done countless times whenever I needed to be reassured. "You're fit and strong enough to make it as long as your head stays in the right place."

"You mean the thing you said about staying in the zone?" Early on in our training, Cullen had sat me down and told me, in no uncertain ways, what it was going to feel like to push your body to and over the limits. There was going to be pain and resistance involved, just like there was for every cyclist going up that damn mountain, pro or amateur, and your mind would be screaming at you to just throw your bike in a ditch somewhere and give up. The ones that made it to the top were the ones who could ignore all of that and focus on their goal instead of the pain and tiredness.

He nodded. "Just take it one bend at a time and you'll do fine."

I'd just had to take his word for it, since I didn't have any experiences to compare when he had loads, which brought me to ask, "Is that what you do? Why you love cycling so much?"

I knew I'd hit the nail right on the head when he grinned proudly, his eyes taking on the passion of someone who lived for his sport, even if he didn't practice it at a professional level, as he explained, "Doing uphill bike trails is like the ultimate challenge…it's so hard sometimes and, more often than not, when you're halfway up a mountain you may find yourself really wanting to quit, but then you reach the top. There's nothing like that feeling! It's the ultimate victory."

The sparkle in his eyes reminded me of my dad even though his had been as brown as mine and Cullen's were a deep mossy green. It was the passion in their expressions, I guess, that made both men look similar. Seeing it in him, though, caused that strange feeling in my chest to make a quick reappearance; that time freaking me out even more than it had done the first time. _This is the second time today now. The mountain air must be doing funny things to my head!_

Emmett announced the meat was done then, breaking up our conversation at exactly the right time for me to get the hell away from Cullen and his weird mind-trickery.

I made a studious effort to avoid him for the rest of the night, which didn't last too long because with tomorrow looming over our heads, we all decided to go to bed early. I chuckled, heading upstairs to the bedroom I shared with Rose, my dad's voice droning in my head about how the Tour de France was won in bed, not on the bicycle. The cyclist who managed to get enough rest would recover faster and better in preparation for the next stage and, thus, would have more energy when he needed it most.

Not that I anticipated my nerves would allow me much sleep.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Rose asked, weaving her long, blonde hair into a messy braid as we were both lying in bed. "That thing…" She shuddered visibly as she waved her hand in the direction where Alpe d'Huez loomed over us.

"I know," I chuckled, though it was more like a scared hyena type of laugh than one with actual humor in it, "but I have to." _For Charlie_. "Remember what my dad used to say about not being able to say you can't do something until you've at least given it a try?" I waited for her to nod before I went on. "I have to give this a try. For him _and_ for myself. I've worked too hard to give up now." _As if it has ever been an option. _

"You going to sleep?" Rosalie asked, saving me from panic attack number…_wait, there's been too many to keep count. _

I nodded, switching off the little nightlight next to the bed. "I'm going to try at least. Are you sure you're okay with the room situation? I still don't understand why Cullen can't take the couch so that you and Em can sleep together."

"And I don't understand why you hate the guy so much that you'd ask him to perform a small miracle after a night on a lumpy, rundown two-seater!" Rose giggled, tossing the magazine she'd been reading to the side as she stretched out like a cat. "And to answer your question: I'm fine with me and Em sleeping apart. It's only for two nights and you know what they say, absence makes the sex grow better."

"I think you've got your sayings mixed up, Rose!" I snorted. "And I don't hate Cullen…well, not exactly. In some weird way I even think we're friends…kind of. I just…sometimes he really rubs me the wrong way."

"And that sucks considering all he wants to do is rub you the _right_ way!" Rose snickered, her cheeks turning red only after she'd realized what she had just revealed. Which only made my panic levels that much higher.

"What?" I gasped, shooting back up in the bed_. Wait a minute…back the fucking truck up…does that mean…_"Are you saying Cullen…_likes_ me?"

"Oh, come on, Bella!" She rolled her eyes as if I'd just said something stupid. "_Everyone_ knows the guy has been completely smitten with you ever since the first time you trained together, maybe even since the first time he saw you. Hell, look at the ways in which he's been charging in like a fucking bull in a China shop every time a guy as much as looked at you! It's that obvious. Well, to everyone but you, it seems."

I was still in a state of shock, my body dropping down to the mattress as I digested the words one last time. The way he'd spoken to me that first night…and then with Jared... "Cullen _likes_ me? Likes _me_?"

"Is that so hard to believe?" Rose's voice sounded from the other side of the room. "You're not ugly, Bella, and you have to admit the two of you have a lot in common."

Did we? I started to sum it all up in my head. We both liked the same bands, movies and television shows. He didn't like Jane Austen as much as I did but, for the rest, we shared a love for the same kinds of books as well. He studied anthropology, while I was majoring in criminal studies, which meant that were both keen studiers of our fellow creatures on this planet, though we took a different approach to it. _Fuck! Rose is right. We might have a lot more in common than I thought. _

But then again, he had the reputation of being a complete manwhore and one of the most disgusting my-daddy-is-rich-so-that-makes-me-Hugh-Heffner-wit hout-the-ridiculous-bathrobe-and-viagra kind of guy, while I was only a wimple and a full skirt away from being a nun. _Rose just said he's changed his ways, though…and even I know that's the truth. Apart from Chelsea I can't remember an instance when he's ever mentioned a girl in all the months we've been training together._

And then there was the fact that Rose's little precision bomb had left me all sorts of confused on the emotional side of things. Just when I had myself convinced that it was never going to work out between us, a little voice in the back of my head started to pipe up and had proclaimed it really wanted me to give it a try. I hated little voices in the back of my head. They should be shot, though not if it meant putting a bullet in my own head because I had kind of a strong will to live.

"I see I've given you something to think about!" Rose giggled from her bed, obviously delighted to see me so bent out of shape over this.

"It's not going to work," I tried to convince myself, the words coming out as unconvinced as the rest of me was.

"How do you know?" She challenged me. "You haven't even tried."

_Dammit! Why does she have to throw dad's words at me just when I'm at my weakest?_ "So what do I do?" I grumbled. "Drag him off his bike tomorrow and into the bushes for a quick roadside fuck to get him out of my system?"

"No!" Rose snorted. "Though kudos to you for finally letting your inner deviant creep out! I think you should just keep an open mind; give him the chance to show you who he really is without you shooting him down every time he tries."

If Rose had wanted to put my mind off the daunting challenge that lay ahead of me, she'd succeeded completely. Though I, as anticipated, lay awake for most of the night, my thoughts weren't devoted to the mountain or my fear of climbing it as I had predicted might happen. They were dedicated to the man who was right next door, snoring up a storm along with Emmett, and my rapidly changing feelings for him.

Oh yes, I was falling.

Hard.

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_**Thoughts?**_


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya! **_

* * *

_**Exactly one year ago, this was me…**_

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**14. Climb**

Breakfast the next morning was a quiet affair, everyone off in their own heads visualizing the climb or thinking about loved ones lost. My dad was never far from my mind but with Cullen and my new feelings also occupying a substantial part of it, I was glad for the quietness of the house. I already didn't know how to act around him now that I recognized what I was feeling, let alone talking to him.

"You got everything?" Alice, who was buzzing with energy, was all up in my face as I got ready, pushing more energy bars into the small pockets of my jersey, my water bottles already tucked into the holders on my bike. "You know?" she whispered.

I did know, patting the other pocket to let her know I had the little tin canister in there since I still didn't really feel like talking. As part of dad's request, his ashes were to be scattered from the top of the mountain and since Alice was never one to be left out, we had agreed we'd go halves.

It was a bizarre thing though, to divide dad over two little tin cups and stuff him in your shirt along with all the candy bars and warm jackets, though it also felt oddly comforting to have him by my side during my lonely climb.

He'd get to conquer the mountain after all, just not the way he'd imagined.

As much as Alice had tried to convince me otherwise, I'd insisted on not having any sort of emotional hoopla on the mountain. To me, this whole endeavor was one big 14k long commemoration and celebration of the man dad had been, and as much as I didn't want to cheat Alice out of her own closure, I knew I was really going to need to be alone with my own thoughts when I reached the top. Having her blabber on about all sorts of stuff would definitely push me beyond my limits.

We'd decided to do this alone, each of us paying tribute to him in our own way before meeting up at the cottage again to celebrate dad with some of his other favorite things in life: steak and beer.

"You guys ready?" Cullen's face was almost completely obscured by his helmet and the huge, mirrored sunglasses he was wearing, his hands fidgeting with the snap on his helmet as he joined the rest of us in the driveway, nods and tight smiles all around; the loud clicking of cycling shoes snapping into the pedals permeating the silence.

Cullen actually had the body to make the skintight cycling gear look good, the outline of his muscular chest faintly visible through his jersey, with his tanned thighs and calves only adding to the image of the lean, good-looking sportsman.

_And don't even get me started about those legs. _

"Be safe, you guys!" Rose called, tearing herself away from her man as we cycled out of the driveway, adrenaline pulsing through our veins as we sped up to the start of our climb while Alice followed behind, almost dancing out of the driveway in her eagerness to get started on her walk.

_It's really happening._

_I'm going to do this. _

We were around the bend, feet pounding the pedals as we coursed up to the foot of the mountain where the zero kilometer sign announced the start of our challenge, a sharp turn left obscuring the point where the road seemed to go straight up into the sky.

_Holy fuck!_

"Let's gooooooo!" From the sound of his loud bellow, Emmett was as amped up on adrenaline as I was; his huge muscle mass driving him forward as I lagged behind, trying to find my own rhythm since I knew the first few miles of this particular climb were the steepest at just a little over ten percent.

_Keep your own pace._ Both Cullen and dad's voices sounded in my ear, keeping me from overstraining myself to keep up with the others as slowly, but surely, the team started to scatter, each attacking the climb at their own pace as Cullen and Jasper were already disappearing out of view, Emmett hot on their heels, and me already dragging behind.

"There's no shame in finishing last," I muttered to myself, trying not to feel disappointed about already having to let go of the last wheel with the first bend, number 21, not even close. "Just get to the top, one bend at a time."

It would have been nice, though, if it didn't take such a long time before that fucking bend finally popped into view, my muscles already burning and my breath leaving my mouth in asthmatic-like wheezes as I focused on the little sign in the corner.

**Bend 21: Fausto Coppi (1952) & Lance Armstrong (2001)**

Of course I already knew that each of the twenty-one hairpin bends that would take us to the top bore the name–or names– since there were more winners than there were bends–of the cyclists who'd won a Tour de France stage finishing on top of Alpe d'Huez. The names only enforced the huge lump in my throat as I was finally starting to grow a little more confident of my success. _Halfway through the hardest part, come on Bella!_

_One down, twenty to go. _

The road meandered ahead, my vision limited as I snaked around the solid rock, only meeting a few cars on their way up or down the mountain as the rest of the team had vanished from my sight.

**Bend 20: Joop Zoetemelk (1976) & Iban Mayo (2003)**

Joop, nicknamed 'the eternal runner up', a Dutchman who came second in the Tour a staggering six times before finally winning in 1980. The sixteen times he started and finished the toughest cycling race in the world had been an absolute record in Tour history until George Hincapie matched it last year.

I knew his was the first of many Dutch names I'd come across along the way, the Dutch with a grand total of fourteen wins having been the first to conquer this mountain as part of the Tour more than any other nation in the world. It was a fact, of course, that had always made my dad puff his chest with pride, relishing in the fact that his mom, my grandma, had been a good, healthy farm girl from the east of that country. In his eyes, that meant that he would surely be able to make it to the top one day.

_I wish you had, Daddy. If only you could be here with me right now. _

I pushed on, using the relative flatness of the bend to quickly draw a few sips from my water bottle before I rose, using the extra force I could exert from a standing position to pound my way to the next bend, knowing that when I reached it, the worst 3k of the climb would be behind me.

**Bend 19: Hennie Kuiper (1977) & Lance Armstrong (2004)**

He'd cried, my dad, that day when Lance Armstrong claimed his first overall victory in the Tour de France, taking the yellow jersey all the way to Paris. It would be the first of seven consecutive wins, which now all turned out to be a lie.

Thank God my dad never had to see the man exposed, or lived to see the sport he loved so much hovering on the edge of the abyss because of all the sordid doping affairs.

It had been one of the only few times I'd seen him so overcome by his emotions, silent tears falling from his eyes as we watched what could only be called a true champion claim his victory. To fight a battle for life and death one year only to come back and mock death and science by winning something that could only be won by the fittest and healthiest of people…yeah, we had both cried that year.

_Little did we know… _

The snippets of his interview with Oprah that I'd seen had made me so angry at the vile imposter; not only for destroying the sport by cheating, lying, and bullying his way through the peloton but also for destroying the dream of millions of cancer victims and their families. He'd raised himself up as an example; a shining beacon that having cancer didn't have to be the end of your dreams as long as you fought hard to conquer it.

But everything had been built on a lie.

_You told me Dad, that second year he was riding in the yellow that there was something about the guy that had started to rub you the wrong way. You didn't like the aggressiveness with which he claimed his victories, and neither did I. Still, we'd never have guessed this was happening…_

Remembering only at the latest possible time to snap my feet out of the pedals before pulling the breaks I made my way to the high concrete curb that shielded the road from the drop-off behind it, my chest violently extracting and contracting as I caught my breath, the sweat dripping down my face as I shook my legs, and forced an energy bar into my system even though I wasn't hungry.

_Always eat. You're burning calories faster than you can replace them. Don't eat and you'll be hitting a wall before you know it. _Cullen's warning was enough to make me eat since I'd seen it happen right in front of my eyes to some guy at the finish line back in California–his face as pale as a sheet and he stumbled around with two of his friends helping him to the nearest bench. His color had returned only after he'd chewed his way through two enormous Mars bars and drank a huge bottle of Gatorade.

That was an image I never wanted to revisit, let along experience for myself.

I was back on my bike again not long after that, not wanting my muscles to cool just when they were starting to get warmed up nicely, and with my breathing back to normal, I was good to go again anyway. The next stage only slightly less steep before the road would even out and keep climbing at a steady eight percent.

**Bend 18. Hennie Kuiper (1978) & Frank Schleck (2006)**

Frank Schleck–the racer who'd dropped a bomb under this last year's Tour de France when he tested positive for a diuretic on the second resting day in the Pyrenees and went on to claim he'd been poisoned.

Mercifully, dad had been asleep when it happened and if he found out later on, he never asked me about it.

I missed my dad so much.

**Bend 17. Joaquim Agostinho (1979) & Carlos Sastre (2008)**

Getting around the bend offered an amazing view of the mountains surrounding me. The tops were still covered in snow even though it was the middle of summer; the green, white and solid grey colors surrounded me during this challenge as I pushed on, not allowing myself another break to stop and enjoy the vista as I knew the next bend would take me to the first little village along the way.

**Bend 16. Joop Zoetemelk (1979) & Pierre Rolland (2011)**

Pierre Rolland–the last person to win on Alpe d'Huez so far since this year, the names of the two victors of this mountain from a few months ago not yet added to the lineup.

I could feel the road below me starting to flatten out a little bit more as I entered the picturesque little village of La Grave, a beautiful little church rising up from behind a stone wall as rays of sunlight poured through the trees, reminding me of why it had been a good thing we'd all helped each other lather up in a good layer of sunscreen before we'd left that morning.

Looking at the little display of the speedometer attached to my handle bar I could see my pace was picking up as I pedaled through the village, my legs happy since the incline wasn't so steep anymore and the next bend coming sooner than I would have thought since it was quite a long way away from the one behind me.

**Bend 15. Peter Winnen (1981)**

I soared through the bend, not stopping to think, drink or even look around me as the tall trees behind the bend offered some shade to cool my burning face, arms and legs as I pressed on, feeling more and more like a woman possessed.

I had to get to the top.

**Bend 14. Beat Breu (1982)**

Knowing I needed to drink I slowed down a little before the bend, quickly pulling a few long sips from my water bottle before slamming it back into the holder and pushing on.

_Only thirteen more bends to go. _

**Bend 13. Peter Winnen (1983)**

Completely worn out, I dragged my body off my bike, my breathing back to out of control wheezes again as I drank, ate and waited impatiently to get moving again, knowing that even though there were a lot of bends behind me, I was only about a third of the way up.

Sitting there I could faintly discern the grey of the road as it meandered up and up in front of me, the length of it as it then disappeared out of view only to pop up again much higher up, quite disheartening as the confidence I'd slowly built up over the past nine bends started to evaporate again.

_Okay, time to go. _

**Bend 12. Louis Herrera (1984)**

**Bend 11. Bernard Hinault (1986)**

**Bend 10. Federico Echave (1987)**

**Bend 9. Steven Rooks (1988)**

**Bend 8. Gert-Jan Theunisse (1989)**

**Bend 7. Gianni Bugno (1990)**

I pressed on, trying to switch off my brain as I tried not to focus on how my legs felt like they could explode at any time, or how the sweat kept dripping into my eyes. I stopped listening to what my brain was trying to tell me–_quit while you're still alive because this is madness_–but I wasn't given up!

And I couldn't.

I wouldn't.

Emmett and Jasper cheered me on during their way back down, their bodies faint blurs as they thundered down at a dazzling speed. I managed to at least smile and say hello, though I wasn't really paying attention to them at that moment. I had other things on my mind. Like the fact that I was dying. _Okay, maybe I'm a little melodramatic_,_ but it sure feels like it at times. _

I didn't even pay attention to the view in bend nine, although I'd read everywhere that it was the most magnificent along the road, or to the signs in the corners even though there were some pretty big names up there. All I did was move my feet around, watching the surface of the road as inch after inch I got closer to the top; closer to my goal. I slowed only enough in the corners to drink, hoping I still had enough residual energy left over from breakfast and the energy bar I'd eaten bends ago to make it.

The only voice I listened to was the one in my head, belonging to my dad, as he told me to keep going.

And so I did.

Up, up I went until my throat was too dry and my lungs burning too hot to go on.

**Bend 6. Gianni Bugno (1991)**

Could I really make it to the top? Rationally I knew I had most of my journey behind me–only five more bends to go after this one–but, at the same time, I knew that the hardest part was still in front of me. After this corner I would be back in the village of Huez, the lower levels of which I'd just crossed, and then I would be out in the open with the village of Alpe d'Huez, my goal, looming high and impossibly far on the horizon and nothing to shield me from the sun, nothing to protect me from myself. Except for dad's voice and even he was starting to become harder to hear over my labored breaths.

The finish line never seemed so far away and I had never felt so lonely.

"Fucking pull it together, Swan!" I cussed at myself, rising from my concrete seat as soon as I possibly could after catching my breath and forcing another energy bar down my throat_. I'll be happy if I never have to see another fucking energy_–_or candy ba__r _–_in my life again after this. _

My muscles groaned as I got back onto my bike, my ass sore even in spite of the fillet mignon type padding, but did I really have another choice? There was no surrender, no giving up no matter how much my mind and body were both in accordance that it was the only sensible thing to do.

Sometimes madness was the only way to brilliance.

So up, up, up I went.

**Bend 5. Andrew Hampsten (1992)**

**Bend 4. Roberto Conti (1994)**

I forced my way through the small town of Huez, gnashing my teeth when, right after bend number four, another particularly steep bit of mountain loomed up right in front of me.

_Noooooooooo!_

Dad's voice was back in my ear, telling me about that time when Lucien van Impe, a Belgian rider and favorite to win the Tour like he had done the year before, had been struck by a car, right around the same spot as I was now, during his ascent of this very mountain and did he give up? No, the guy jumped back on his bike and went on, even though he knew he wasn't going to win and the escape that should have had him end up in the yellow jersey had ended in tears.

He had finished third, more than two minutes behind Henie Kuyper, where he should have been the first to reach the top and the one to take the yellow jersey from the man who would later go on to win the Tour. The least I could do to honor his courage and perseverance was to match it with some of my own.

_Come on, Bella! Don't think, just do it. _

Still, in spite of my pep-talk, both my confidence and perseverance were wearing thing; what was left with them blowing away on the sharp gusts of wind that tortured me now that there were no more trees or houses to shield me on my way up.

_Daddy, help me!_

And just like that, as if dad had heard my plea for help, he was suddenly there, stepping out of the shadows from underneath some kind of little shed along the road.

Edward.

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_**Thoughts?**_


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya!**_

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**15. Top**

Suddenly there he was. Edward, not my dad. That would have been too freaky for words and the definite sign that the sun had gotten to my brain or something. Somewhere between bends four and three, just at that one spot where you can see all the way up the mountain to the long climb you still have ahead of you and really start to lose hope, he emerged from one of the small, wooden shacks along the way and fell into my pace.

He'd gone all the way up the mountain and then down again to this point where he had waited for me. And now he was going to do the final bends again, just for me.

_How wrong could I have been about him? This man is nothing short of amazing!  
_  
"Edward!" It was all I managed to get out in between wheezy breaths but it must have been enough because his smile widened to the point where it was almost cracking his face in half. It made me want to jump him and maybe, if I hadn't been so sore, out of breath and completely exhausted, I even would have. _Imagine still having the energy for that!_

"I figured you might need an extra little nudge about now," he spoke, his voice, much to my relief, getting a little breathless. _Thank God I'm not the only one having a hard time._ "And what happened to _Cullen_?"

I shrugged, catching my breath a little as I slowed to let him get on his bike. "Figured…if you're doing… this for me…the least I can do…is start calling you…by your…given…name." I panted.

"Fair enough," he chuckled, the muscles in his calves tightening as he jumped on his pedals, giving his bike some forward momentum to get back in the rhythm. "You're doing amazing, Bella. It's not far now."

"Yeah." Wheeze. "Right." Pant. "I can see…" Double wheeze. "All the way." Gasp. "To the top, Edward." _Jesus, talking while climbing really sucks!_

He laughed, the sound so welcome after my own despair only half a bend ago. "Just keep your eyes on the road, Swan, and take it one bend at a time."

Taking his advice to heart, I stuck to looking down instead of up at the disheartening sight of the village in the distance, Edward's loud pants mixing with mine as we crossed the long straight between bends four and three until finally we rounded it, only two more official hairpins standing between us and the top.

**Bend 3. Marco Pantani (1995)**

_Il Pirato_. The pirate. The man who'd fallen so far after the unfortunate end of his career that he could see no other way but to end his life. We'd both mourned him, my dad and I, not for the way his life had ended but for the heroic victories he'd claimed before it all fell to pieces. To this day, his 1997 climb of the Alpe d'Huez was still the fastest in Tour history at just short of forty minutes.

Add two hours and you had my time. That was, if my lungs didn't give out before I actually reached the top.

"Come on, let's go!" Edward spurned me on after we'd slowed down a bit to drink. "Two more bends to go!"

The distances between the bends had started to grow longer (not fair!) the next one only a vague prospect in the distance but at least it gave me something to focus on and with Edward by my side, quietly supporting me, and we were there before I knew it.

**Bend 2. Marco Pantani (1997)**

Only one more to go.

The first houses of Alpe d'Huez, the ski-resort at the top of the mountain, were already closing in on us, my excitement growing as slowly, but steadily, I started to realize that I really was going to make it. I mean, I was in the village now, there was nothing holding me back again, not even if I had to cross the last couple of yards on foot.

_Daddy, I'm going to make it!_

**Bend 1. Giuseppe Guerinni (1999) **

We'd both been sitting in front of the television, watching on in horror as Giuseppe Guerinni, a guy we'd hardly ever heard of before, smashed into some idiot bystander taking a picture, the image of the man in the lead on the ground so painful we could feel it on the other side of the Atlantic.

We'd screamed along with all those other people on the mountain as he got on his bike again and went on to win, with just the narrowest of margins on his immediate competition; a heroic victory.

My legs must still have been attached to me and my lungs were burning like they had been for as long as I could remember, but I didn't feel it anymore. My dad's voice now a part of a chorus of voices belonging to all those cycling greats that had gone before me as Edward and I attacked the final stage of our climb, he understood my need for quiet as we soldiered on together, my eyes already starting to sting with tears.

_So close now. _

**Bend 0. Bas Mulder.**

The final bend, which wasn't an official one though it was a hairpin part of the Tour de France route, had gotten its name not so long ago and was named not after a pro-cycler but after a Dutch victim of cancer who, in the midst of his own battle for life and death, had climbed the Alpe fifteen times as part of a Dutch charity before sadly losing his battle two years ago, three months after his final climb.

The tears that had been threatening to spill for so long now ran over as my eyes glanced at the sign, donated by the charity he'd been involved in and the people of Alpe d'Huez in dedication of his fight, both on and off his bike.

_I wish you were here, Dad._

The road started to really even out with every new yard we conquered, the road lined on both sides with ski resorts that were empty and closed now, giving the town almost the look of a ghost town. That was, it hadn't been for odd cars and the surprising amount of cyclists riding up and down its streets with big smiles on their faces.

Had they really been on the mountain the same time I had? Why hadn't I seen them?

And then, all of a sudden, we were right there, the road all but flat as we reached the home stretch, my legs no longer sore and my lungs no longer burning as I crossed the finish line, my face wet with sweat, tears and there may have even been the odd drop of blood since I was biting my lip so hard to keep myself from crying out loud.

_Daddy, I made it! I'm here! I've reached the top!_

"It's okay, Bella." I could feel Edward's arms closing around my body, my bike still wedged in between us but I didn't mind as I used his shoulder to cry on, giving into the grief I'd kept bottled up for the better part of six months.

_I miss you, Daddy. So fucking much!_

"He's really gone now," I whimpered, trying to put a name to what I was feeling at that moment, for myself, and because Edward must have been freaking out. "And he's not ever coming back. He can't…he won't ever…He…He's _gone_."

"He's a part of you, Bella." His voice sounded husky but oh so close, his breath making my hair move as his fingers stroked up and down my back. "He's going to be around for as long as you want him to be. You'll never forget him and you'll never really loose him as long as you'll keep him in your heart, even though he might not physically be around anymore."

I nodded forlornly, my hands reaching out towards the canister in the little pocket on my back. "Look, there's something I need to do up here and I understand if it's too much for you or if you don't want to tag along…" My hand trembled around the small tin as I tried to mentally prepare myself for what I was just about to do.

_You asked me to let go, Dad, but am I really ready to do it?_

"I'll be there as long as you want me to," Edward's voice was determined, his hand steadying mine as it became in danger of dropping the tin. "And, if you don't mind me helping out, I think I know just the place for him. Come on."

We both got back on our bikes, Edward leading the way to a spot just below the town; a patch of grass secluded from the main tourist area that had a magnificent view of the valley below and the mountains surrounding the Alpe.

"It's perfect," I whispered, twisting my feet to free them from the pedals as I dismounted. "He'll love it here."

"I think so too." Edward was right behind me, helping me across the low wooden fence separating the road from the grass. "I mean, I didn't know him but from what you told me…"

He let his voice trail off as I got the canister out of my back pocket again, taking a few steps forward to the edge of the mountain as I worked up the courage to let go. Edward stood a little to the back, understanding my need to be alone even when I hadn't voiced it; my voice too constricted to do anything but swallow the sobs that accompanied the seemingly never-ending flood of tears.

_I think I'm ready to let go now, Daddy. I just have to know that this is the right thing to do._

As if he was sending me a sign from heaven, a big bird of prey flew up just then, circling the sky above the valley as its cries echoed off the stony slopes.

_I guess this means goodbye, then. This is it._

I made sure I was standing to the right side of the wind since as much as I loved my father, I had no desire to inhale his ashes.

_Okay, here we go. I love you, Daddy. I'll still miss you every day. _

Carefully and with trembling hands I unscrewed the lid, the wind almost immediately picking up the ashes and they were scattered all along the grassy slope below, my sobs growing louder as the tin slowly became empty.

_You're really gone now. _

Edward's arms were around me again before I could really fall to pieces, his strength holding me upright as I cried until I didn't have any tears left to cry, words of condolence and encouragement whispered in my ears as I hung on to him silently until finally I found the power to stand on my own two feet again. It felt good to be in his arms, knowing he was there and sharing this moment with me. I knew then and there that I'd made a friend for life in the one person I'd least expected to find solace in. Though my heart was telling me it wanted more.

"Look," Edward spoke, my eyes following his arm as it pointed below to where the bird of prey was now sitting, perched on top of a fence pole in the middle of the area where dad's ashes had scattered. "I don't know about you, but I think it's a sign."

I smiled, a watery smile but at least it was there and it was as much as I could manage. "Then dad really should have left an explanation note because I really don't know how to interpret a big ass bird sitting in a field."

His chest shook as he laughed out loud, the sound startling the bird back into the sky as it soared out of view behind some tall trees. "I think he would have been so proud of you for doing this."

I sighed, only hoping he was right. _I love you, Dad_.

I knew that, though he would want me to be happy in life, my next actions wouldn't exactly have made him brimming with pride if he happened to be looking down on us but, as my heart was still full with what I'd just done, it was also overflowing with feelings for the man standing next to me.

So I kissed him.

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_**Thoughts?**_


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya!**_

* * *

**16. Down**

Pulling back from what had arguable been the best kiss of my entire life–even if it was closed mouthed and chaste enough to take place in front of my father's remains–I could feel my cheeks heating up into a fierce blush.

What the hell just happened?

Did I really just force myself on some poor, unsuspecting guy?

Oh, no!

"I'm sorry…" I stammered, shuffling back slightly as I kept my eyes safely trained to the road beneath my feet. "I never should have…that is…"

"Shut up." His words came as such a shock to me that I promptly obeyed, probably gawping at him like a fish on dry land as I tried to ascertain whether he was pissed off or just embarrassed.

And then he did another thing I'd never have expected him to do.

_He_ kissed _me_.

And fuck me if his kiss didn't make my knees buckle underneath me because, seriously, he was _that_ good. _Why have we never tried this before? I mean, it seems a shame to spend all our time working out when we could have done this? Oh, right, I know why…because I hated his guts and he seemed to do everything in his power to piss me off even more…._

"Do you have any idea how long I wanted to do that?" he whispered huskily, brushing a few clammy hairs out of my face as he slowly disconnected his lips from mine.

I bit my lip, shaking my head, my whole being breathless and swaying uncoordinatedly against him as I tried to rally. "N-no?"

He smiled warily, the tips of his fingers running over my still heated cheek. "I wanted to do that the first moment I set eyes on you."

"But…" I frowned, taking an involuntary step back. _Wait a minute…_ "But you thought I was gay? You said so yourself and…and you fucking told _everyone_! Why would you do that if you wanted to kiss me?"

"Hurt pride?" Edward offered, looking as guilty as he should, considering what he'd done. Hell, at that moment I wasn't sure whether I wanted to slap him or kiss him again. "There I was, pulling out all my moves and you didn't even seem to notice how much I was trying to get into your pants."

"I was shy…" I muttered, knowing he had a point. I remembered how I'd been afraid to even sit on the other end of the sofa from him with a huge gap still between us while I spat verbal diarrhea all over the place. "And nervous because…well, all the gossip and stuff."

"And stuff?" One of his brows arched as that infuriating lopsided smirk of his appeared in all its mocking glory.

"I thought you were hot, okay?" I growled, pushing his shoulder in frustration. "And stop deflecting. It's _you_ in the doghouse here, remember? So you were coming on to me that night?"

He nodded. "I saw you the minute I walked in and I thought you were gorgeous, though a little out of place."

"I was," I chuckled, remembering what I'd felt like that night. "I never noticed you were putting the moves on me, though."

"I kind of got that." He smirked, as if the memory of that night still hurt his precious ego. "So when you started talking about being a policewoman and how you liked killing innocent bunny rabbits for fun during your free time, I kinda put two and two together in my mind."

"And came up with the completely wrong number?" I huffed, also remembering what it had felt like to have a whole room of half-drunk people make fun of me. "I didn't visibly swoon at first glance and so I _had_ to be gay?"

He cringed, that guilty-puppy-look making a reappearance. "I was kinda arrogant back then."

"I'd say!" I huffed, crossing my hands in front of my chest because I was still pissed off but also getting rather cold standing out there in the wind.

"Look," Edward offered, "I know we have to talk and that I have a hell of a lot more explaining and groveling to do, but how about we get back down first before we both freeze to popsicles?"

"I guess," I grumbled, the prospect of having to go down that mountain again the same way I went up about as appealing as standing here arguing while slowly freezing to death. "You're not getting out of it this easy, though," I warned him. "I still need to know why you never did anything to stop the gossip from spreading."

"Later," Edward promised with a small kiss, then clicked one foot back into his pedals as he pushed off, using the earth's gravity to pick up some speed.

"Not so fucking fast!" I peeped, scrambling to catch up to him. "Some of us are actually trying to make it down this damned mountain alive!"

"Then shut up and listen to what I say," Edward chuckled, keeping his feet idle until I was right next to him. "Now, not to make you freak out or anything, but behind that roundabout is a rather steep bit of road."

It turned out that 'steep bit of road' was an understatement for a patch of tarmac that seemed to be vertical instead of normal, safe horizontal.

"Are we actually supposed to go down there?" I squeaked, my eyes trailing down the abyss to the little square that seemed slightly familiar. "Can't we just go back the way we came?"

"One way street," Edward announced, like I would give a flying fuck about breaking the law if it meant staying alive.

I didn't have the time to actually voice my protests, though, because before I knew it, I was already flying down the little avenue, my hands desperately squeezing the brakes as I felt like plummeting down a bloody mountain.

_Holy mother of steep roads, I don´t want to die!_

By some miracle I make it down the alley-of-death alive, my bike rocketing through the little square I faintly remembered seeing before and onto the road I remembered quite well from my struggles to make it to the top.

It was funny how going down seemed to be so much easier when going up I was so much more relaxed.

"Too faaaaaaast!" I yelled as Edward, seemingly oblivious to the laws of physic and abandoned by all common sense, let his bike accelerate to forty miles an hour, my eyes already growing misty with tears and my whole body shaking with mortal fear as I squeezed the brakes, my bike buckling slightly underneath me. "Oooohhhhhh!"

Somehow, my fear made me want to squeeze my eyes shut, which might not have been the best of plans, what with the first of the twenty-one hairpin bends coming back up on the horizon.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! I'm going to dieeee!" I muttered, my eyes fixed on the bend as it came near and while Edward sailed through it as if he'd never done anything else in his life.

_Need to see where I'm going._

_Need to see the bend._

_Visualize the bend–he told you to fucking _visualize_ the bend. How the fuck can I fucking visualize the fucking bend if I can't fucking see it because I have to keep my eyes on the fucking road leading up to the fucking bend?_

_Okay, I say fuck a lot when I'm scared of dying. Not that it fucking matters because I'll be dead soon if I don't calm down right, the fuck, now. _

_Okay. I'm calm._

_Sort of._

_Remember the steps, Bella. Remember what Edward taught you. _

_Step one: slow the fuck down. _

_Step two: keep calm_–y_eah, right!_

_Step three: look past the bend, not into the abyss–you're going to freak the fuck out again if you look into the gaping void beside the road–but to where the road straightens out again. _

_Step three: now turn the handlebar–slowly, you don't want to slip. _

_Yeah_–_easy does it. _

_Aaaand we're through! _

One down, twenty more to go.

"See?" Edward grinned proudly as I caught up with him again. "That's not so hard."

"Not so hard!" I shouted, the adrenaline and fear still pulsing through my veins making me a bit temperamental. _Just a little bit. _"Will you just shut the fuck up? I've never been so close to dying!"

"Just relax and enjoy it," Edward persisted, obviously really looking for someone to do him bodily harm. "Your technique is good and you're in control of your pace. Keep concentrating and you'll have no problem making it safely down."

It turned out he was right. Not that it mattered or anything because even though I did make it safely down, I did so while simultaneously pissing my pants and praying non-stop, my body so tense and rigid with anxiety that I was afraid of being stuck in this position for the rest of my life like some marble statue depicting the Roman goodness of 'oh, holy fuck, I'm going to die'.

"You can let go now, Bella." Edward's voice drifted through the haze as my bike slowed down, my cold body slowly warming up again now that we'd reached the warm valley again; the sun shining, the birds singing and my chest finally feeling like it could actually start breathing again as my heart rate slowly quieted down to normal levels.

I made it.

"I didn't die!" I muttered, not realizing I'd said those words out loud until Edward almost doubled over with laughter.

"Don't look so surprised!" he squeaked. "Do you really think I'd have let you do that if I thought you wouldn't be safe?"

"I thought I was going to die," I gasped, repeating myself since these words seemed to be the only ones my still shell-shocked brain could come up with. "I'm never going to do that again–_ever_!"

"You say that now," Edward teased, "But in a couple of weeks you'll be begging me to take you back out there."

"Nah-uh!" I shook my head fervently, my hands only now slowly morphing back to their regular shape after having been fixed in 'brake-death-grip-position'.

Edward still didn't seem convinced, shaking his head as he stepped off his bike and turned around, his eyes reverently wandering back up Alpe d'Huez again. "We'll see."

Following his gaze it suddenly hit me all over again like a freight train.

Dad was gone.

I'd let him go.

I'd left him on that mountain and he would never come back.

I buckled, Edward catching me only just in time before I'd have hit the ground as, for a moment, my grief hit me so hard it took out everything else. "Dad!" I sobbed, hiding my face in Edward's neck as the image of his ashes, scattered on that mountain top hit me all over again.

I'd let him go.

He would always be _there_ and never with me.

He was really gone now.

Somehow, Edward understood just what I needed at that moment, his fingers gently prying my helmet off my head as his free hand held me close. "As long as you have the memories, he'll always be with you," he whispered, rubbing my back as my whole body shook with violent sobs.

I don't know how long we stood there, me crying, him trying to get me to stop, until I slowly started to calm down again; my body completely spent and my eyes all cried out as I leaned against him, soaking up all the strength he was willing to offer me and more, breathing it in with his strong, masculine scent.

"Thanks!" I sniffed, finally strong enough to stand on my own two feet again as I took a cautious step back, my legs still wobbly but holding their own. "I bet you never had a girl go that crazy on you right after your first kiss, right?"

"It's definitely a first," he grinned back, looking relieved to see me back to somewhat normal again. "And seeing as you're back to cracking jokes, I take it you're okay again?"

"Sort of," I nodded sadly, my eyes once again slowly lifting upward to where the peak of the mountain met the sky. "I don't think the pain of missing him will ever go away but I know I'll have to move on from here. I know that's why he wanted me to do this…to close the book."

"It makes sense," Edward nodded, wrapping his arm around me as we started to walk the remaining distance back to the house, my eyes remaining fixed on the blue sky.

It might have been my mind playing trick on me but as they followed the scraggly line of the mountain peak, it almost looked like a huge bird of prey was zooming right past the top.

* * *

_**Thoughts? **_


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya!**_

* * *

**17. Feast**

Rose let out a huge cheer as soon as she saw Edward and I come into the house, his arm still wrapped firmly around my shoulder. "Fucking finally!"

Emmett merely chuckled, patting Edward on the back in one of those guy moments. "Well if you need some pointers on how to please a woman, just let me know. It's been a while for you, after all."

"I don't need any tips from you, you idiot!" Edward good-naturedly jested back, punching Emmett in the shoulder though he never let go of me.

Just the way it was supposed to be.

Rose merely grinned, her suggestive wink making me bury my face in Edward's shoulder. "Awe, look at her! I don't think I've ever seen Bella so flustered," she teased, high-fiving her boyfriend as they went on with their little tag-team-the-new-couple-into-mortal-embarrassment game. I wasn't sure if they were doing it just for the hell of it or if they knew just how much I wanted to be anything else but gloomy at that moment but either way, it did the trick.

Even though my emotions were still completely off-kilter–and would be for quite some time to come, I suspected–I could slowly feel myself grow more responsive to those surrounding me again.

"So," I drawled, swiping a piece of melon Rose was cutting up for our commemorative barbeque. "Need any help?"

"You," Rose spoke sternly, making me jump back as she waved a big-ass knife in my direction like some crazy lady, "go shower because you _stink_, and then you may come help me."

"Jeez, thanks!" I grumbled, though I had a feeling she might be right. After all, I'd just spent countless hours, and probably bucket loads of sweat and tears, slogging myself up that mountain_. _

Rose never even acknowledged me as she turned to Edward, looking all menacingly commanding even without the knife still in her hands. "You go do the same, then help Emmett set up the back yard."

"Yes, ma'am," Edward replied, apparently as suitably impressed with Rose's attitude as I was.

"Oh, and lovebirds?" She stopped us as we both trudged off towards the stairs. "If you do find yourselves in need of a round of hot monkey bathroom sex, then go for the one at the front of the house, m'kay? As much as I may like that you've both finally pulled your heads out of your asses long enough to find out one plus one still makes two, I have no desire to hear your freaky sex noises."

"You should be so lucky, bitch!" I yelled after her, happy my face was already out of view so that Rose couldn't see the effect her words were having on it. She would have just loved to see me all hot, bothered, and frightfully insecure at the thought of doing the nasty with Edward–reformed manwhore–Cullen.

Because, I mean, it's not like I was as pure as the driven snow or anything, but I didn't exactly have his level of experience–or if the gossip mill was anything to go on, his legendary skills, as well.

"I don't know about you…" I jumped a little as Edward's voice ran over my skin, his body so close behind me that I could almost feel its touch as I breathed in his presence. _Oh and I totally get what Rose was saying about being stinky now._ "But I'd rather not have our first time be in some cramped shower stall with tweedledee and tweedledum listening in for details to pester us with later on."

I swallowed hard, all thoughts about sweaty armpits forgotten as I nodded. 'Y-yeah…I think so, too."

"So how about you take the bathroom at the back and I'll take the one at the front?" he suggested, pressing a kiss to my neck, right where my hairline ended before his lips traveled up and up, leaving searing hot kisses on their way to my mouth. We were both gasping for air by the time we broke apart, my body slightly swaying as I grabbed a hold of him to keep me steady while he merely looked at me like he wanted to devour me whole. _Yes and please._

"Right," he muttered while shaking his head to break our gaze after we'd spent what possibly may have been a good fifteen minutes just staring at each other like that. "Shower." _Yeah_. _Cold shower. Sounds about right at the moment. _

Hopping underneath the shower a few minutes later, I was still feeling completely overwhelmed with everything that had happened during the short couple of hours between setting off that morning and arriving back at our cottage a few minutes ago.

In the background there was still the sadness of having lost dad all over again as well as the emptiness of completing the task I'd been working towards for a year now. But right there, front and center, I was mostly confused about the stuff that was happening between me and Edward.

Yes, I liked him.

A lot.

Kissing him had been unlike any other boy I'd ever kissed; it felt deeper somehow, more meaningful. Even though we'd never really had those super-heavy, in-depth conversations, he seemed to really know me, which would make this thing that was happening between us both a whole lot easier and a whole lot harder at the same time.

Going into this wasn't something I'd do for a summer fling or a regular fuck buddy; I knew that even without having discussed that with Cullen–_Edward_. This would be something much more long-term and the thought of it scared me.

"Oh, God!" Rose groaned when I walked back into the kitchen, freshly showered, dressed in the summery version of sweats and still none the wiser. "You're already over-thinking this shit!"

"Am not!" I lied, and very unconvincingly so. "Anyway…this is big, grownup kind of stuff. I'm supposed to think about it before I jump in, right?"

"Only if you're hell bent on ruining it before it even starts," Rose countered. "You seem to forget: I know you, Bella Swan, and I won't stand by and let you make a huge mistake just because you're too much in your own head to recognize a good thing."

I nodded, knowing she was right, even though that nagging feeling was still there, right in the pit of my stomach. "Boys are confusing!"

"True," Rose chuckled, setting a cutting board, a knife and a bunch of cucumbers in front of me. "But with some direction they can make you feel pretty good."

"True!" I repeated, grinning as I watched Edward and Emmett struggle to move the huge umbrella from one side of the patio to the other. "Wouldn't they be better off just moving the table and chairs?"

"Probably," Rose snickered, "but are you going to tell them?"

Looking on as Edward battled the solid concrete foot, I could kind of see her point; the way his muscles strained against the fabric of his shirt providing me with quite the view. And I hadn't even started about his ass. "Where's Jasper?"

"He took one of the cars to pick up Alice," Rose answered, stirring some dressing through the salad after I'd added the cucumber I'd sliced. "They should be back soon."

"Okay," I nodded, not quite sure how I felt about that. Even though Alice and I never really got along, this was about her dad too. And even if she barely saw him enough over the years to really get to know him, I knew this day would probably affect her just as much as it had me.

We were sisters, after all, and we were supposed to be there for each other at times like these. Even if I had no idea what the hell was going on inside her head most of the time.

If I'd expected Alice to be more approachable and…friendly, I guess, the minute she waltzed into the cottage I knew my expectations had been as fake as Pamela Anderson's boobs, my anger already on the rise as she walked in, all happy and chatty and acting like she was on a third grade field trip, which pissed me the fuck off.

"Calm down," Rose whispered. She intervened by handing me some fresh, cold beers for the boys and shooed me out onto the patio. "Go talk to them. It'll calm you down."

"If she keeps talking like that then, so help me God, I'm going to shove her face right into the grill," I hissed, barely resisting the urge to run back into the kitchen and karate kick my sister's lights out. "She's acting like she just came home from a shopping trip!"

"You never act like that when you come home from a shopping trip," Rose tried to joke, her humor falling flat, however, on the anger that was still rolling off me in waves.

"What's the matter?" Edward's brow furrowed into a worried frown as he scooted the chair next to him back for me.

"Alice just came in," Rose explained for me, since I was still unable to speak in anything but curse words.

"Bitch!" _See? _

"Ah," Emmett nodded, cringing as he put two and two together. He's been the witness of two many of our spats to be left in the dark.

"Just keep Bella from committing murder and I'll see if I can sort it out," Rose ordered them, sitting me down before hightailing it back into the kitchen.

Sipping my beer in resentment, I watched on as the guys fired up the grill and started to do that very manly competition thing where they decide who was going to be the grill master. Any other time before, I would have been hunched over with laughter but now…it was kind of sexy, watching Edward being all cave-man and shit. _What the actual fuck is going on with me? _

I didn't know what Rose said to Alice (or Jasper) but when they all came out, I was glad to see that Alice had quieted down again to a state where I could actually fool myself into thinking she was at least somewhat aware of what we'd been doing today.

That, and she was sitting as far away from me as she could.

I was already on my third beer and working up a nice buzz as I traded cycling jokes with Emmett and Edward. _Alice who?_

At some point during the evening–I think it was about the time when Emmett dumped a whole plate of steaks on the table and told us all to help ourselves–I did overhear her complain about the fact that we were currently staying in the land of wine and she wasn't allowed to have any, but before I could rip her nasty little head from her shoulders, Edward was there to distract me.

And boy, could he be distracting!

And cute.

Did I mention he was cute as hell–or at least he _could_ be, when he put his mind to it?

And, of course, I was as drunk as a skunk, drowning all of my confusing emotions in copious amounts of beer and greasy steaks as we drank and ate to my dad's memory. _Charlie would have loved this. _

_I miss you, Daddy._

"You're doing great," Edward whispered, pulling my seat closer as he wrapped his arm around me, drowning me in his soothing scent as he pressed a kiss to my hair.

I was about to say something back when Emmett stood up and cleared his throat, commanding attention from all of us. "Now I know I'm not his son, or second cousin, or whatever the fuck you need to be to speak at a man's feast, but I've known Charlie for about as long as I can remember so there's a few things I want to say…"

I smiled encouragingly as he sought my eye, nodding for him to continue as I burrowed deeper into Edward's arms. _I need him._

"Now I don't know much about church or religion or anything since my momma was one of them hippie-folk," Emmett went on, "but I do know that if there's a heaven up there, Charlie would have had the time of his life this past year, watching us get ready for today, but mostly laughing until he cried at our fuck-ups…"

I snorted, remembering the first time I took a tumble. _Yeah, I bet he was pissing himself that day. _

"He loved all of us–well, at least the ones he knew," Emmett grinned apologetically at Edward and Jasper who merely shrugged, "and I know that if he's up there, somewhere, he loved what we did today, though I think he would have had a thing or two to say about us drinking this foreign shit instead of our good old domestic Bud."

_Yeah, he never really had a taste for anything else but the beer he grew up on. _I smiled, remembering one of dad's rants about the 'frilly European crap those damn yuppies tried to push on us', though I had to admit that secretly, I'd taken to stashing the little fridge in my dorm with Heineken instead of Budweiser. _Sorry, Dad, it just tastes better. _

"So, I want to raise my bottle and drink to him tonight." Mimicking him, we all raised our beers, the tears now really pricking in the corners of my eyes as they moved up at the clear sky, radiant with thousands of stars. "To Charlie."

_To you, Dad. _

* * *

_**Thoughts?**_


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya!**_

* * *

_**Happy Independence Day to all those who celebrate and happy Tour de France to every cycling enthusiast who, like me, will be glued to their TV's over the next couple of weeks. **_

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**18. Sea**

I'd seen the sea before, of course, but looking at it again in all its sunny glory, it couldn't be more different from the Pacific coastline if it tried.

It was beautiful, though.

"Move your butt, Swan!" Emmett grumbled behind me, dragging as much of our luggage as he could carry up the small, rocky road that led to our home for the next two weeks.

"It's not my fault you wanted to show off and carry all of Rose's stuff up to the cottage by yourself!" I jested, purposely slowing down for a step or two before stepping aside to let him pass. "You know she doesn't exactly travel light."

Coming up the hill our little house on the seaside rested on, my breath was taken away by the view; a vast glistening ocean, surrounded by a jagged coastline, dotted with trees and little villages. "It's beautiful," I gushed, protecting my eyes from the fierceness of the sun.

"I know, isn't it?" Alice spoke beside me. "I think I pinched myself a hundred times when I found it, I just could not believe a place like this was real. It broke my heart when I found out it wasn't exactly on our budget, but when Mom and Phil found out they were more than happy to pay the rest."

"Wait a minute!" The sharp turn of my head almost gave me a whiplash as I turned towards her. "Mom and Phil paid for this house?" Looking at it, it really did seem too good to be true; a rustic country farmhouse kitted out with all the modern comforts on the inside but still oozing rustic charm on the outside and with the view…Yeah, there was no way this could have come in on budget.

"Don't start, Bella," Alice barked, though I didn't understand why she could be so pissed off about me being pissed off. I mean, she knew this was going to happen. "They only paid for the part that was over our budget."

"_Tell me_ what they paid," I spat back, using what little height-advantage I had on her. "You know I never wanted to let them buy their way into my life."

"I really don't see why you're making such a big deal out of this," Alice countered. "It's not like they are going to hold it over your head the next time they see you. Hell, they didn't even want you to _know_."

"I just know they're going to use this against me some way or another." I chuckled darkly. I'd been here, in this exact spot far too often before not to know that Phil never did anything unless he stood to gain something. _Least of all spend his precious money._ "So you're going to tell me exactly what my share in the extra costs is, or I'll just get in touch with the owner and find out for myself."

"Fine!" Alice huffed, stalking away from me but not before screaming over her shoulder, "I knew you were going to be a bitch about this!"

"Charming," Edward chuckled beside me; he and Jasper were bringing up the last of our bags. "What did you do this time?"

I scowled, narrowing my eyes at him. "What makes you think it was _me_?" I debated whether or not to punch him but, seeing as he was carrying my stuff all the way up a fucking slope, I decided to let this one slide.

"I know you, Bella," he grinned, avoiding the jab I tried to land on him as he hightailed it into the house.

"Go get us a nice room, honey!" I yelled after him. "Even if you have to kick someone else out!"

"I heard that," Rose's voice sounded from somewhere inside the house. And from the sound of it, she wasn't very amused.

I didn't really care, though. All I cared about was Edward finding us some nice a big bed that was as far out of range of the rest of the house as you could get. And I wasn't sharing it with Rose, this time.

"So you and Alice got into it again?" Jasper spoke, his voice even and hard to read.

"I can't help it," I tried to explain. "She just…We're from different and conflicting worlds, I guess. We never get along. Besides, she knows how much I hate my mom so why did she think she could get away with her and Phil paying for part of our stay here? She knew how much it meant to me to pay them back for what they spent on my bike?" I could feel myself getting angry again as I spoke the words, my voice rising an octave as I spat, "that shit just doesn't fly with me."

"Don't be too hard on Alice," he spoke softly, looking as if he knew his words weren't going to be received well. "She has a good heart."

I snorted. "So does an artichoke but do you find me wanting to waste my breath on talking to it? I guess not."

"It's a pity," Jasper smirked, hopping off the fence, "because I think the two of you really have a shot here. It would be a shame to waste this opportunity when you know as well as I do how life can be stolen from you in just the blink of an eye."

I couldn't very well argue with that, knowing what I knew about time being stolen with so many things left unsaid, even though God only knew how much I wanted to.

I mean…it was Alice we were talking about.

The very same girl who had made my life impossible from the day I'd been born and who was constantly scheming with mom to get me to finally fall into their web.

Walking into the house I found out that Edward did manage to snag us a room towards the back of the house overlooking the rolling countryside and blissfully far away from the other two bedrooms.

Boy did good.

After the feast the day before and travelling to the coast, none of us felt like even firing up the grill; the six of us all piling into one of the rented SUVs after a quick spruce up to have the most amazing seafood dinner I'd ever tasted at a little bistro in a nearby village.

Overlooking the sea and with the sound of seagulls nearby (but not so nearby that we had to worry about them dropping anything in our food) providing our background music, we just sat and hung out; the atmosphere light as even Alice was behaving herself for once. I had a feeling this was about as close to heaven as a girl could get on earth.

All throughout dinner, Edward was as close by my side as he could get without making it impossible to inhale our food, his caresses and little kisses setting me on fire as they grew bolder with every minute that passed until I really had to take a breather before I'd spontaneously combust.

Or threw him down right there and then on our table to ride him like Seabiscuit in front of my friends.

And Alice.

"What?" he replied innocently as I gulped down a glass of ice water in a desperate attempt to quench the fire. _Nope, not working._

"You know?" I gritted. "Payback is going to be a bitch one day."

"Hmm," he crooned, the timbre of his voice against my already overheated skin making me desperately need another bucket of ice water. "I can't wait to find out what you have in store for me."

"Get a room!" Rose teased, though she did look a little squeaked out at our blatant display of PDA. Not that it stopped her from shoving huge bites of crème brûllée down her throat.

"Get us home and we will!" I smirked back, sticking my tongue out at her.

I didn't know if it was because of what I said or because we were all too tired to stick around town after we finished dinner but we did drive back shortly after that. Jasper gave me a poignant stare as we piled back out of the car and started our trek up the little path to our cottage.

_Right. Talk to Alice._

_But I don't wannaaaaaa!_

Sighing, I grudgingly nodded, leaning into Edward as I watched Jasper hold Alice slightly back from the group. "Go warm up the bed for me, sugarplum?" I whispered, relishing as he seemed to be as affected by me as I'd been by him. "I need to talk to my sister."

"'Kay," he nodded, kissing the corner of my mouth. "Don't kill her, though. I'd be so lonely if you ended up in jail."

I chuckled, shaking my head as I watched him go into the house, noting how Alice looked about as eager to have our little chat as I was as she lingered behind. "So…" I started, unsure of how to do this shit. _Why isn't there a handbook on 'awkward conversations to have with a sister you don't really like'?_

"Yeah," Alice smirked, probably feeling about as comfortable as I did. _Not_. "Jasper seems to think we need to talk."

"Got to you too, eh?" I chuckled, wishing I had a beer or something stronger to take the edge off. "So I guess…I mean, a good start would be…" I groaned, before finally blurting out. "Why did you go behind my back to get Mom to pay for this house when you knew I'd hate it?"

She shrugged, looking guiltier than she had in years. "I didn't really think about it, I guess. I just thought it would be so cool if we got to stay here…and they have the money to make it happen so…"

"You just went for it, huh?" I finished, trying not to fly at her throat this time.

She nodded. "I'm sorry for going behind your back like that but I really don't understand what your problem is with Mom. I mean…she's your mother and she's trying so hard…"

"She's trying hard to _change_ me," I intervened before she could spew more crap. _Not getting angry is really starting to get hard right now._ "You saw the way she acted at the airport and you've seen the way she's been treating me for years now. In all those years, every damn time I came over for a visit she would always start to pick on the way I dressed or acted. Hell, she even went as far as to blackmail Dad with a custody suit when he allowed me to go to the Indiana race track with Emmett and his family!"

"She was just worried…" Alice tried to defend her, though I could see from the look in her eyes that her attempt was half-assed at best.

"She never accepted me for who I was and she hated Dad for being a better parent for me," I spat, still feeling equally hurt by both those accusations even after years of trying to come to grips with them, "and she never lets an opportunity go to let me know just how much she disapproves of me or how you always were and always will be the golden child."

"She can be a bit much sometimes," Alice grumblingly acknowledged, "but you have to admit that you're not making it very easy for us either."

"What the fuck do you mean by that?" I yelled, done with being nice.

"_That_ right there!" Alice sassed back. "Okay, so mom may have screwed up a little but that doesn't mean that every time you drop by you get to act all superior and ready to snap at us for just the littlest thing we say. Do you have any idea how nervous that makes me?" She took a few labored breaths, looking so much smaller all of a sudden as her anger deflated out of her body, making her almost look nice. "And when I'm nervous, I always say the wrong things."

I snorted, though my ire wasn't as red-hot as it could have been. "Yeah, that's right!"

"And whenever I came over for a visit to Forks, you and Dad made me feel as left out as you felt coming to us," Alice continued, holding up her hand as I moved to argue. "Don't try to say you didn't because you know damn well you did. You two were always on your own little island, in the middle of the fucking world, and that island wasn't very friendly to outside visitors."

"So what do you want me to do now?" I growled. "Apologize to you for developing a close bond with him after she gave up on me? That's not going to happen, _sis_."

"I know," she muttered. "It's just…We all messed up but as long as no one wants to start taking responsibility, we'll just be going around in circles, hating each other a little bit more at every spin."

She had a point. I mean, I was still pissed off about what she said but even I had to admit that there had been a core of truth in her words. "So what do you propose we do then?"

"I just…" She sighed, her eyes wandering at the ocean. "I know we'll probably never be besties or anything because we're too different, but can we not be enemies, please?"

I shrugged, following her gaze because it was easier than looking at her. "I guess."

"Good," Alice nodded, her earrings making these weird wind chime-like sounds. "I'll try to get Mom off your back and…I guess I could be a bit more considerate of you."

"Thanks." I pressed my lips together, feeling oddly optimistic all of a sudden. "And I'll try not to always be against you."

From the corners of my eyes, I could see Alice smile as she muttered, "I guess that would be nice."

It was impossible for me not to grin at that, even though it still felt kinda wrong to be having fun with my sister. The thought alone… It meant that it was about time to put an end to it. I mean…I had better things to do.

Like Edward, for instance.

So I did. "It's time for me to go make sure Edward made the bed," I spoke, mentally slapping myself for my dumb-ass statement. At least it was better than 'well, I'd better head inside to go get laid by my hot piece of reformed-manwhore ass'.

Even though that was more like the truth.

* * *

_**Thoughts?**_


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya!**_

* * *

**19. Bed**

By the time I finally made it up the stairs, my confidence wasn't so much soaring as it was virtually non-existent; which kinda sucked, seeing as I really wanted to come across to Edward as a confident twenty-first century girl who knew what she wanted in the bedroom and wasn't afraid to ask for it.

Not that I actually was that kind of woman, though.

I just really _wanted_ to be like that.

Instead, by the time I made it to the door I looked more like some psycho virgin who was afraid her boyfriend's magical peen was going to rip her to shreds than anyone who could have guest-starred on _Sex and the City_.

I swallowed nervously, wetting my lips and fluffing my hair (and hating myself for doing both those things) before I opened the door, my mouth going dry as I saw Edward reclined against the pillows, grinning lazily at me as he tossed the magazine he'd been reading to the side.

Oh, yes, and he was naked.

Not that the whole thing was hanging out or something. I mean, it was perfectly covered by the sheet, but the way the it was draped around his hips, leaving just enough of his hipbone exposed, it was plain to see that unless Edward was the kind of guy who wore those really scary tiny G-strings (which seemed highly unlikely, thank God!), he was as naked as the day he was born underneath.

"You're naked." I groaned, verbally sucker-punching myself for just blurting that out like an idiot.

Edward merely chuckled, his stare smoldering as his eyes locked with mine. "It's hot out."

_It looks hot underneath that sheet, actually._

In spite of the air-conditioning, it was suddenly very hot inside; my throat as dry as a desert as I swallowed again, trying to come up with something witty to say but failing miserably. "I-I'm kinda nervous, you know?"

"So am I." I would have snorted at his statement had it not been for the truth I his eyes, which kind of took me aback.

"You are? But you…you're…"

"I know." He cringed a little, patted the space in the bed next to him and waited until I'd taken off my shoes and sat down to continue speaking. "But this is not like that…this…it means so much more to me and…those stories are all hugely exaggerated anyway."

"You mean you didn't sleep with half the female population on campus?" I snorted, waiting to call him out on his lie. I mean, I'd seen him drag a different girl into the coffee shop about every week for a while.

"Only about a quarter at most," he joked before turning serious again. "And before you ask: I didn't sleep with all those girls I brought over to the café. Half of the time I took them there just to get a reaction from you…see if you cared at all."

"It pissed me off," I huffed bitterly, remembering how it felt to see him flaunt his playboy status in my face after first destroying any chance I had in the campus dating pool.

"I could see that, which was what kept me coming back there in the hope…" He didn't finish his sentence nor did he have to. "I'm sorry about all of that, by the way. It was a shitty thing to do, I know."

"You really have a funny way of trying to woo a girl, you know that?" I snarked. Laying back against the pillows as I stared up at the ceiling. _I can't believe I'm here with Edward!_

"It's all part of my charm." Edward grinned, turning onto his side as his index finger started to trace lazy patterns along by bare arm. "So now that we've established we're both nervous, do you want to talk some more about why that is, or do you want to see if we can find a way to lose some of that tension and anxiety in a more constructive way?"

I swallowed…still not feeling really relaxed even though knowing he was as nervous about this as I was really did help. "W-what do you have in mind, Mr. Cullen?"

"This," he muttered, leaning in and pressing his lips to mine in a sweet kiss that took my breath away. "And maybe a little bit of this," he went on, the hand that had been caressing my arm coming up, gently enclosing my breast as his thumb traced my hardened nipple over the few thin layers of clothing separating it from my skin.

He chuckled as I moaned, the whole sensory overload of his ministrations making me feel almost drunk on lust as I squirmed against him in search of more.

"And definitely some of this," he whispered, his lips leaving mine only long enough to say the words as his free arm manipulated my body until I was underneath him, the whole length of my frame flush with his and feeling every single inch of him. And it sure didn't escape my notice that he was practically naked. Well, _completely_ if you didn't count the sheet that was still tangled up between us.

_Wow_. "I guess…that might help," I panted as we finally broke for air, his arms closing around me as he rolled us over so that I was on top. "How very 'constructive' of you."

"Mmmhmm," he purred, his hand dipping underneath the fabric of my shorts. "And seeing as it's so hot in here–as we established before–it might be a good idea to lose some of these clothes, no?"

_Oh, yes, and please!_

I nodded mutely, sitting up as he pulled my t-shirt over my head, his hand dipping inside the cups of my bra as the straps fell down my shoulders. He must have liked what he encountered; the way his eyes darkened and a labored 'fuck' fell from his lips as his hands did all sorts of amazing things to my boobs, raised my confidence just enough for me to started moving against him, his cock twitching underneath me as it met with my cloth covered pussy.

_Well, hello there. Nice to meet you, too!_

"Lose…the pants," Edward grunted, the sheet falling completely off as he sat up, eager to help me.

_Oh, would you just look at that!_ I wasn't ashamed to say I was blatantly ogling him, my mind forgetting it was supposed to do something as my eyes drank him up like lemonade on a hot summer day.

Even his cock was kinda pretty, and it seemed friendly enough even in spite of its daunting size as it waved to me a little more, though I still retained the opinion that men's pork swords were the most ridiculous (if not extremely pleasurable) thing on earth.

Well, maybe except for Nicki Minaj.

Or skorts.

But I digress…

Helping me along, we were able to pull my shorts from my legs, my hands somehow managing to wriggle my underwear down as Edward tossed my clothes somewhere into a corner of the room, the crash signaling he'd probably broken something in the process.

Not that I cared, though.

I mean, I was about to have sex…

…with Edward 'sex-is-my-middle-name' Cullen.

"Don't be nervous," he whispered, "it's just us." He sat across from me as we just stared at each other for a moment, hovering on the edge of something huge. "Just let it happen."

I nodded, biting my lip. "So, how do you want to do this?"

He smiled, scooting forward as his arms encased my newly naked body. "Let's just play it by ear, shall we?"

And that we did, our hands touched bare skin as our lips kissed, bringing each other to the brink and over, and only stopping long enough for him to quickly slide a condom over his rock hard cock before he finally pushed into me, his groan vibrating against my skin as he fought to control himself.

And I was in heaven.

Damn, the boy had some moves!

As we became lost in a dance of clawing hands, undulating hips and groans reverberating through the room, each sensation brought me another wave of pure pleasure until I thought I would explode.

And then I did, crying out like a banshee as I came around him, his movements intensifying before he followed after me as we flew high before crashing back onto the bed in a twisted, panting heap of body parts.

True, it was short, but really, I couldn't find it in me to care. I mean, there would be plenty more time for taking it slow later on, right?

"Fuck!" he wheezed, rolling off me as we were both utterly spent and covered in a sexy sheen of sweat. "That was…..you felt so…."

I chuckled, quite proud at myself for rendering a man whose prowess was legendary among women beyond speech. Though truth be told I wasn't exactly unaffected myself either. "We should have done that…a long time ago," I panted, rolling onto my side so that I was touching him, my fingers lightly tracing the sculpted panes of his chest. I never wanted to stop touching him.

"Fact!" Edward nodded, leaving the bed shortly to get rid of the condom before joining me again, his posture mimicking mine as we just lay across from each other and stared, both of us still high on what just happened.

"So," I giggled as his fingers drew along a ticklish spot on my side. "How long until we can do it again?"

Just as I spoke the words I could feel his cock stir in the narrow space between us, my laughter deepening as he rolled me on top of his and all but ripped the sheet out from between our bodies.

I had a feeling I was going to be in for a long night.

_Yay me!_

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_**Thoughts? **_


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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_**LadySharkey1 reigns supreme over my faulty grammar and overly long sentences. Love ya!**_

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**20. Love**

The next morning, or technically afternoon, when we went downstairs we were met by a series of grins, knowing looks, and playful jabs from our friends. Fuckers.

After all, we may have been on the other side of the house from them but it wasn't like we'd made an effort to be quiet or anything. In fact, I could vaguely remember screaming Edward's name, amongst other things, at the top of my lungs somewhere along round three.

_Yep, he was that good. _

The days after that…they were bliss. So blissful, in fact, that I sometimes forgot I was a snarky bitch at heart and just kicked back and let the romanticism of falling in love with the boy of my dreams, while staying at a fairytale cottage on the French Rivera wash over me.

I was falling hard.

In the good way, of course, not in the way that had me plunging to my untimely death after a fall from my bike.

"Only a few more feet," the boy in question urged me on from the top of the rocky cycling track I was plowing my way up. "The view will be so worth it."

"It…better…be," I hissed through clenched teeth, sweat dripping off my face as I battled through the final part of the climb. It wasn't anywhere near as tough a climb as the Alp had been, but my body seemed to be unwilling to accept that.

He was right, of course, just like he always was. I would have said I hated him for it but the fact was that I just didn't…I mean, the man gave me four orgasms last night. _And I'm not complaining!_

"It's beautiful up here," I nodded, my eyes taking in the magnificent view from way up; the bay sweeping out in front and underneath us as my eyes narrowed in on a little white dot in the distance. "Hey, is that…"

"The cottage," Edward confirmed, his breath ghosting over my sticky, sweaty skin as he stood behind me, his hands dancing along my arms creating a butterfly effect in the pit of my stomach and a craving I'd come to know and love during the five days we'd spent on the French coast.

A craving for him.

These past days had just been the best. We went out for long bike rides along the coast, not so much because I wanted to keep in shape or anything since I wouldn't exactly shed a tear if someone told me tomorrow I could never get on a bike ever again in my life, but it was nice to get away from the rest of the gang every now and then and spend some quiet time alone to talk.

Among other things.

It turned out, much to my own surprise, that I was really rather adventurous when it came to having sex out in the open. I mean, not that I'd ever done anything like that before, with my dad being the police chief of my home town, and U-Dub's campus being too overcrowded to get up to any funny business, but there really was nothing like my boyfriend pounding into me from behind as I kept my eyes fixed on the spot where the ocean met the horizon.

And the added bonus was that I was finally working up a decent tan as well, where I'd pretty much looked like the Corpse Bride all year long before I picked up cycling.

Who knows? Maybe exercise wasn't so evil after all.

"What's going on in that head of yours?" Edward grinned resting his chin on my shoulder as we both still took in the view. "You seem miles away."

"I was just thinking that maybe I'm starting to enjoy this whole exercise thing," I chuckled, leaning my head against his.

"It has its perks," Edward nodded, his hands starting to wander. "And I bet I can think of one form of exercise you will definitely like."

I giggled, my blood already heating up from his touch as his hands wandered further upwards to cup my breasts through the thin fabric of my cycling jersey. "Oh really?"

His hips pushed me flush against the little fence, his erection clearly noticeable against my butt even if he was wearing padded pants. "Yes. Really."

We were late for dinner that day, with hair standing up at all ends underneath our helmets and my jersey being on inside out due to the haste with which I'd redressed when a group of hikers had rudely disturbed our afterglow. _Who knew there'd be more people than just the two of us enjoying the magnificent views of the Mediterranean? We sure didn't!_

"I guess I don't have to ask what you've been up to!" Rose grinned as she put the finishing touches to a salad while the smells of steak and fish grilling on the barbecue wafted in through the open terrace doors. "God, don't you two ever stop?"

"Like you're the one to talk!" I jested back, sticking my tongue out to her. "I remember when you and Emmett got together we all had to pry the two of you apart with a crowbar if we wanted to spend some time with either one of you."

"Go get showered," Rose pouted, not amused with being bested at her own game. "You reek of sex."

"Jealous much?" I chuckled, hightailing it out of the kitchen since I knew Rose wouldn't need much time to retaliate…the cherry tomato landing against my back just before I dashed into the hallway being the proof of that.

"How much trouble do you think we'd be in if we made good use of the earth's finite resources and showered together?" Edward suggested as we made it up the stairs to our bedroom. "Because I swear woman, if I don't have you right now, I won't be held responsible for my actions over dinner."

"I guess we'll find out soon enough?" I smiled coyly, squealing as he chased me all the way to the bathroom.

It wouldn't surprise that we were very late for dinner.

Throughout the evening, Rose's eyebrows were perpetually raised as she followed me and Edward's every move (which most of the time happened to coincide), making her look like some weird cartoon figure at times. By the time she finally managed to get me alone, I was about as curious to find out whatever had crawled up her ass as she was anxious to speak to me.

"Soooo," she hedged, leaning against the kitchen sink as I pulled a fresh round of beers form the fridge.

"So?" I echoed, catching the bottle opener she tossed at me.

"You and Edward seem to be moving pretty fast," she started gingerly, as if she knew I was going to argue.

I frowned, putting one of the bottles to my lips. "I thought that was your whole point in getting us together?"

"I know, I know!" Rose chuckled nervously. "But I can't help but worry a bit when I see you so caught up in a guy when during the nearly two years I've know you, you hardly ever dated."

"So you're trying to play mom now, Rose?" I giggled, knowing I should probably be offended by her butting into my private life but really feeling more assumed than anything. "I'm touched, if not a little weirded out by your concern but really, Edward's a great guy and….and I think I'm falling for him."

"I think you've already fallen about as hard as a girl can fall," Rose corrected me, coming to stand right next to me as she snagged one of the beer bottles and took a huge gulp from it. "I just want you to keep your eyes open, that's all."

I smiled back at her, clinking my bottle against hers. "Will do."

Edward's keen eyes were on me as soon as Rose and I stepped out onto the back deck again, our arms filled with beers. "What was all that about?" he whispered as I set about distributing my half of the drinks.

I shrugged, squeezing myself into the empty space on the whicker loveseat he occupied, his arms almost immediately coming around me. "Just girl talk."

"Hmm." His lips briefly touched to the top of my head as I snuggled into his hold, watching the flames of the fire pit flicker. "Is that where you women plot to take over the world under the ruse of polishing nails and braiding each other's hair?"

I snorted. "Exactly."

Later that night, I lay awake in his arms, unable to sleep even if Edward had done his best to properly wear me out. There was something about what Rose said that never left my mind and, quite frankly, was starting to scare the shit out of me now that I stopped to think about it.

_You've already fallen as hard as a girl can fall. _

She was right, of course. I knew that without even having to think about it. I had been in love before–or better said: tried to be in love–but none of the feelings I'd ever had even held a candle to what I was already feeling for Edward.

Which was crazy, since we'd only been together for less than a week.

Suddenly I was starting to see why Rose had been so concerned; the violence of my emotions making it hard to think of or feel anything else but him.

But what if that was clouding my better judgment?

What if this whole pink cloud I was on was keeping me from having a clear head and making sure this was really what I thought it was and not something else. And, even more importantly, that _he_ felt the same about this as I did.

What if he didn't?

The fact was that thought alone had been enough to spin me into a wild panic told me enough about my own feelings to get even more worried about his. I sighed turning back onto my other side as I glanced at the clock.

3:15

Shit.

"So, are you ever going to tell me what's going on or are you quite determined to make me feign sleep for the rest of the night?" Edward grumbled, his admission making me jump right up to the ceiling.

"You…you're awake?" I panted, clutching my chest.

"Over the last three hours you've been twisting, turning, stealing my blankets, and accidently kicking my leg," he deadpanned. "I think I would have to be in a coma for me not to be woken up by it."

"Oops!" I smirked. "Sorry?"

"So are you going to tell me what's up?" His voice had that sexy gravely layer to it as he sat up, rubbing his eyes, the worried look in them making my heart thud violently in my chest.

"I think I'm in love with you," I blurted out, groaning as I realized I'd just thrown that out there.

Like an idiot.

Edward didn't seem fazed by it, though, his smile widening as he nodded slightly. "Good."

I frowned. _That was so not what I expected_. "Good?"

"Yes. Good," he repeated, his eyes taking on some weird kind of shimmer as they burned into mine. "Because I'm _so_ in love with you."

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_**Thoughts? **_

_**My other fic, Past Imperfect, is up for Fic of the Week over on tehlemonadestand (thanks to a rec from the amazing SunflowerFanfiction). Please vote for me or for any of the other amazing stories. You can find the poll on tehlemonadestand dot net (replace spaces and 'dot', with an actual dot) Thanks!**_


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**It seemed no more than fitting for this story to reach its completion on the day (Thursday in Europe, even though I'm posting this ridiculously early because I'll be traveling all day) when the peloton will travel up my favorite and most hated mountain in the world (and just to proof that with a little training it's really no biggie to reach the top (yeah right) they will do it twice in one day). For all of you who will be watching: have a great Alp day! And for everyone who reads: thank you so much for giving this story a shot! I've loved reading your reactions and it warms my heart to know that I've even succeeded in transferring some of my love for this sport onto you guys. **

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**To Lori: Thanks from the bottom of my puffy heart for making this so much fun and for making my rough, flawed words shine. I wouldn't know what to do without you. **

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**Epilogue: Up**

Looking back, my climb of Alpe d'Huez would always be one of the most profoundly impacting experiences of my life. In fact, even after years had gone by, it was still right up there along with my first collar, our wedding day, and the birth of our kids.

After all, it was where I both said goodbye to the man who'd been the most important person in my life for my first twenty years of existence, and fell in love with the man who would fill that role for the rest of my life.

To me, that mountain would always be special and I knew that as long as I lived, I would come back to it every couple of years, paying tribute to Charlie and all the other victims of cancer as I slowly made my way to the top. My little group of friends and loved ones would always be by my side.

Over the years our group had grown, though. And strangely enough, though some of them were still too young to make it all the way to the top on their own, all of our kids had somehow developed a love for cycling.

My eight year old twins being the frontrunners.

"Look, Mom!" Carly yelled in my ear, just as I was beginning to get my breath back. "Uncle Jazz and Philly are gaining on us!"

"We'd better get going then," I chuckled, taking another swig from my water bottle and making sure my daughter did the same. "Sam and Dad are never going to let us hear the end of it if they make it to the top before we do."

Carly nodded furiously, the fact that her twin was starting to get faster and stronger than she was already a hard pill to swallow.

Let alone being overtaken by another boy.

Of course, when my sister had given birth to a baby boy, she had to name him some weird new age name like Phyllon, which meant that, seeing as 'Phil' was already taken in the family, the poor little kid would forever be associated with a city on the other side of the continental US.

I guess he could still count himself lucky enough to not be named Pilot Inspektor or Banjo or something.

Over the years Alice and I had kept true to our promise to not be enemies. We would never be friends, as we'd already suspected from the start, but with our kids about the same age and thick as thieves from the moment they started to develop an interest in anything but their own toes, we had found a way to spend time with each other without ripping one another's heads off.

_Which was definitely progress in my opinion. _

My sister still wasn't all that fond of physical exercise which meant that she helped Rose take care of the four little nippers staying behind (one of them being my eighteen month old son, Luke) and set up for our barbecue tonight, another tradition we'd kept alive over the years.

With a few more stops along the way, we steadily made our way to the top, our tempo now already so much faster than mine had been that first time. After all, our kids had inherited my love of cycling and Edward's love of exercise almost to the extent that they'd all but cycled out of the womb. And seeing as my husband had never let me give up on our workouts (like I kind of intended), I was now in a much better shape than I had been that first time.

I never did end up getting recruited by the FBI or the CIA but that was alright since it meant that when Edward found his dream job at the San Francisco Museum of Anthropology when he was done with school, I was able to move down to California with him and take a detective job at one of the downtown precincts. When the twins were born, though, the long hours and potential dangers of the job had been too much for me and I'd chosen to take a position at the training center, passing what I'd learned in the field onto my successors.

It suited me, though I had to admit that part of me would always long for the excitement of my former job.

Emmett and Rose had moved on too. Rose's job took her to New York and Emmett followed like a dutiful boyfriend, leaving just Alice and Jasper behind in Seattle. It had given more meaning to these trips, since even though we had Skype and phones, the trips we took to 'our' mountain every five or so years had started to become a reunion of some sort.

One the kids seemed to enjoy them just as much as we did.

"I can see Sam!" Carly screamed, not seeming out of breath at all whereas I was back to that all familiar wheezing and panting.

True enough, though, as we neared the final stages of the climb, the two lone figures of my husband and son came into view, both wearing matching grins as they waited for us to complete the climb, just like Edward had done that first time.

"You holding up?" my wonderful husband asked as he fell into pace next to me, the kids chatting loudly in front of us as they hiked up that damn mountain like it was a molehill.

I nodded. "I can't believe how good they're doing," I wheezed, my motherly pride soaring as our twins rounded another hairpin bend. "It seems like only yesterday they were born."

It was their first climb of the Alp and I had to say I'd been absolutely dreading it. Not so much because I didn't think they were going to make it to the top–after all, their dad had been practically grooming them for this ever since we gave them their first bikes for Christmas–but because of the dangers involved. It was why I'd be joining them and the other kids in the lift back down while Emmett, Jasper and Edward would make the descent the 'old-fashioned' way.

"Coach said they both have some serious talent," Edward nodded next to me, his pride matching mine and making us both forget we were worn out and mid-climb as we followed our children's lead.

"You're not actually encouraging them to go pro, are you?" Even in spite of my burning lungs and achy legs, I still managed a glare. "Because if you do, you will never be get lucky again in your entire life!" As much as I still liked to watch pro-cycling and engage in the odd bike tour here and there, even the thought of one of my babies going pro and actually scaling a mountain at breakneck speed and subjecting themselves to all the dangers that came along with it was enough to make me want to rip them from their bikes, crush them to my chest, and never let them go.

Oh, and I also wanted to throw those bikes, which had actually cost more than my first car, all the way down this damn mountain to stop them from ever getting back on them.

"Don't worry, love," Edward grinned, wiping his forehead his sweatband. "I think the last time I asked, Sam still wanted to be a fighter pilot and Carly a professional stuntwoman."

"Like that's going to help me sleep at night?" I groaned, wishing that, against the odds, my lazy genes would have held up against Edward's super-human daredevil sperm.

"Believe me," Edward chuckled, racing a few feet away from me only to hold back and let me catch up with him again as our kids slowly pedaled up towards the summit in front of us. "You'll have no trouble sleeping tonight. Remember last year?"

"How many times do I have to tell you that it's not funny to have a whole gang of kids creep up on a sleeping mom and tickle her awake before it will finally register?" I scowled, debating whether or not it would make my life that much harder if I just kicked him off his bike and into the abyss. But then again, knowing my luck, I'd probably crash or break something in the process…

"Always once more," he teased, his eyes fixed on the road ahead as the first couple of houses of the ski-resort of Alpe d'Huez started to embrace us. "We're almost there."

I smiled, feeling that same jubilation I felt every time I got there, though the grief of saying goodbye to dad all over again when I left was never far away. From that first time I'd climbed that damned mountain rising up from the earth, it had nestled itself into my heart, claiming a special spot it would never give up as long as I lived. Climbing it, I would always hate this mountain in equal amounts to the love I bore for it but by reaching the top, both love and hate would always merge into that same feeling no matter how many times I did it.

Coming home.

Going up.

_**The end. **_

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_**Sigh. They've come a long way, haven't they? **__**Please let me know what you think. **_


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